The Raggedy Edge
by Annerb
Summary: During a rescue mission gone awry, Sam and Jack end up stranded in another galaxy where they find themselves passengers on a ship called Serenity. Sam/Jack EST
1. Prologue

Title: The Raggedy Edge  
Author: Annerb  
Summary: During a rescue mission gone awry, Sam and Jack end up stranded in another galaxy where they find themselves passengers on a ship called _Serenity_.  
Wordcount: 40,000+  
Rating/Warnings: Older teens for swearing in multiple languages, violence, torture, and such.  
Categorization: SG-1/Firefly Crossover, AU, Action/Adventure, Drama  
Pairings: BOB. Sam/Jack established relationship, hints of Daniel/Vala, Kaylee/Simon, Mal/Inara, and Jayne/Everyone (at least in his mind).  
Season: Post-BDM for Firefly, early season 9 for SG-1  
A/N: Written for dear, patient holdouttrout for the Sweet Charity Auction, Fall 2007. How the prompt "Sam/Jack, undercover" turned into this shall ever remain a mystery. Many thanks to Trout for her patience and understanding. Thanks to katcorvi and aurora_novarum for alphas and betas and handholding along the way.

The Raggedy Edge

**Prologue**

Rain blanketed the street, churning up mud and driving any pedestrians foolish enough to still be out under cover. The raindrops plummeted like sharp needles from the steel curled clouds, driven by the greedy gravity of the planet. Sam could feel the ground sucking at her knees as she peered cautiously around the corner of a building. A week on this planet had done nothing to adjust her to the denser gravity; she doubted any amount of time ever would. At least it meant that when they got back to Earth they'd spend a few days feeling like weightless superheroes.

_If_ they ever got back to Earth, that was.

The full skirts that had become the bane of Sam's existence settled like lead weights as muddy rainwater wicked up her hem. The only positive to the outlandish garments was they allowed her to hide a small arsenal on her person at all times. She could feel the reassuring weight of something not quite a Berretta holstered to each leg, but resisted the urge to arm herself prematurely. She could so not afford to blow their cover on the odd chance that they really had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She leaned slightly around the rough wooden corner of the general store, counting no less than twelve men.

"Shit," she swore, ducking back out of sight. "This is not good."

When Jack did little more than grunt at her, one hand disappearing under his bloody vest, she knew 'not good' didn't quite cover it.

Her eyes darted to the still form crumpled on the ground on the other side of Jack, noticing the gentle rise and fall of the man's chest that informed her that the piece of _go-se_ had the gall to still be alive. A goddamned inconvenience that was. At least a dead man wouldn't break their cover.

Sometimes pretending to be an unassuming pair of farmers really sucked.

Jack followed her gaze to their unconscious companion.

"Maybe they won't notice they lost one of their friends?" Sam said hopefully.

This time he didn't even bother to grunt.

"Shit," she repeated.

She really needed to find a doctor. And not one of those hapless barbers that yanked teeth and mixed concoctions out of the back of his shop. She knew the chances of finding one in this part of the system were even worse than the probability of accidentally stumbling over Daniel in the street one day. Surely one of the central Alliance planets would provide better information and medical care, but they had already proven themselves to be less than open to outsiders. And since neither Sam nor Jack looked forward to being poked and prodded like little green men from Mars, they would have to find help somewhere else.

Unfortunately, currently between them and anywhere else was a raucous band of well-armed thugs that might or might not be looking to collect the bounty on their heads. They had the absolute worst luck these days.

Slouching back against the rough wood, Sam eyed the pallor of Jack's skin.

He was running out of time.

Before she could let her desperation prod her into something rash, the constant, rowdy holler of the bandits rumbled ominously into silence. Inexplicably, Sam felt a trail of goose bumps down the back of her neck at the sudden loss of sound. Craning around the corner once more, Sam wiped wet hair out of her face with one hand, the other reaching up under her skirt for her gun. Somehow she thought the time for caution was long past.

The dozen or so burly men were now standing in a rough half-circle in front of the bar watching the slow, almost meandering progress of a willowy girl with long black hair as she strolled up the middle of the road. She seemed completely unconcerned by the pelting rain or the unmistakable animosity of the roving band of nasty men with nothing more than pillage on their minds.

_Not your problem, Sam_, she told herself. If that girl wanted to get herself killed, or worse, it was the least of their concerns right now. Really.

One of the men let out a catcall of sorts, another helpfully supplying a crass description of exactly what he was going to do to the girl in question.

Sam glanced down at Jack, and with obvious difficulty he managed to meet her gaze. He looked pretty damn resigned.

"I _hate_ this galaxy," Sam said, sliding up against the wall to a standing position. She pulled her gun, checked the ammo. "I am so going to kick Daniel's ass if we ever find him."

Jack grunted in a way she interpreted as 'get in line.'

Who exactly would get to kick Daniel's ass first was an argument they could revisit when Jack wasn't bleeding freely and Daniel was no longer missing. God damn Daniel and his insatiable curiosity! Not to mention his stupid need to touch things that happen to transport him and his newest alien girlfriend to another galaxy, no matter how many times he claimed it _wasn't_ a transporter.

Sam knew she was being uncharitable, but at the moment she didn't give a damn. They'd spent the better part of six months traipsing around this galaxy trying to track down Daniel and now Jack was oozing way too much blood for comfort.

She reached down and squeezed Jack's shoulder. "I'll be right back. You just hold on."

His hand grabbed her ankle, his eyes meeting hers. _Don't do anything stupid_, he seemed to project.

About a year too late for that advice, she thought, giving him a nod and small smile.

Pressing the gun to her side, effectively hiding it in the thick folds of her skirt, Sam stepped out into the street. The men, still intent on the girl, didn't even notice her. Twelve to one weren't the worst odds she'd ever faced, but near enough. She was tempted to pull out her zat, but obviously alien weapons would bring attention she couldn't afford. The last thing they needed was to pop up on the Alliance radar again.

But, oh, what she wouldn't do for a Goa'uld flash bomb.

"Hey!" Sam shouted over the rain. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

The few men that even bothered to look over at her seemed less than impressed. She knew she looked little better than a drowned rat at this point.

"Well, look at that," a particularly ugly one drawled, "we've just doubled the fun, boys."

"You want to leave the girl alone," Sam answered, making up for her less than threatening appearance with her flintiest tone.

"And why would we want to do that?"

One of the men deliberately reached out and grabbed the girl's arm and Sam tensed, ready for the inevitable fight to come. But before she could heft up her weapon, the craziest thing happened: the girl's foot connected solidly with the bandit's chin, knocking him flat out, even though Sam was fairly certain normal human anatomy didn't allow for quite that much flexibility.

There was a beat of silence in which only the drizzling rain and the loud squelch of the unconscious man's body settling into the mud could be heard. Then the girl looked over at Sam with a smile that sent a shiver down her spine. In a blur, she pushed back into motion, almost dance-like as her fists and feet connected with the men around her, ducking and dodging their blundering attempts to defend themselves.

At the rear of the pack a man raised his gun at the girl and Sam shook off her shock long enough to drill him before he could fire, the retort of her gun loud above the fight. That grabbed the attention of the few men still standing in utter shock. One of them was on Sam before she could fire again, knocking her gun from her hand. She could see two of his friends close on his heels.

She let them get close enough to think her harmless (men in this galaxy were as predictable as any back home), only to twist abruptly when one of them reached for her arm, her foot slamming into his stomach. Suitably doubled up, she swept his feet out from under him, dropping him down into the mud just in time to duck the attack of a second man.

The second bandit stumbled past her on the uneven ground and Sam pressed her advantage, stepping hard on the back of his leg and finishing him with a left hook that reverberated rather unpleasantly up her arm.

Shaking the pins and needles out of her hand, Sam flicked her hair out of her face, sizing up the last of her opponents.

The third man stepped back, eying his now disabled companions and circling Sam warily. She was just about to dart in with her first attack when a sharp retort sounded, her adversary falling face forward into the mud at her feet.

Standing behind him was a brown-haired man in suspenders and really tight pants holding a smoking pistol.

"Sorry to ruin your fun, sweetheart, but we're on a schedule," he said before lowering his gun and turning away from her.

Sam stared after him in shock, only now noticing that the little girl she had thought to protect had managed to debilitate the other eight men in the time she had taken to deal with two.

Ducking down, Sam salvaged her gun from the mud, wiping at it with her skirt.

The girl seemed to recognize the small group of people that had materialized on the street during the brief struggle. Other than the man that had spoken to Sam, one other went directly to the girl's side, hovering over her as if to see if she was okay, a third digging through the pockets of the prone men. A tall, calm-looking woman standing watch a short distance from Sam finished off the eclectic group.

The townspeople, who had so far proven to be completely unwilling to lift a finger against the gang of thugs that had descended upon the place earlier in the week, were now peering cautiously out their windows.

A pudgy man Sam recognized as the owner of the only bar in town and therefore the default leader in these parts, pushed out onto the covered walkway.

"One flock of no goods ridden out of town as ordered," announced the man in the tight pants.

"We appreciate it, Mal," the barkeep said, waving forward a boy with some sort of mechanical part in his arms.

Mal took the part with a smile. "Always a pleasure doing business with you, Wilfred."

Wilfred smiled, patting his large belly. "You folks be wanting a drink? You must be parched."

Movement from behind the two men caught Sam's eye and she had her gun aimed in a flash, firing at the bandit attempting to shoot Mal in the back. She had no more than pulled off the shot when a rifle pressed steadily against her back.

"You want to lower your weapon," the woman informed her.

Sam did as she was told, watching the man called Mal and the barkeep look down at the now dead bandit with wide eyes.

"I'm not trying to cause trouble," Sam said, keeping her arms wide.

Mal yelled something over at them that was likely in Chinese. Even having been in this galaxy for months, Sam could still only pick out something that sounded suspiciously like 'monkey balls'. Her Chinese was admittedly spotty though, so she could be wrong.

"Reckon she saved your life, Captain," the woman with the rifle said.

Sam had his attention now and figured a little gratitude might do her some good. She was more than desperate enough to ask.

"Please, I need a doctor," she said, feeling the rifle leave her back. "If there is any way you can help…"

"I'm a doctor," said the dark-haired man hovering near the crazy fighting girl.

Sam looked him over from his neatly cropped hair to his delicate hands. She liked the look of him; he obviously wasn't some quack. She waved him around the side of the building, aware that the rest of the group followed.

Jack still sat where she'd left him, his face paler if possible. She dropped down by his side, ignoring the slosh of mud under her knees.

"That bastard shot him," she said, gesturing dismissively to the still unconscious bandit a few feet away.

The doctor took one look at Jack and the blood soaking his clothes and declared, "I need to get him back to the infirmary if he's going to survive."

Sam felt her chest constrict, her hands tightening on Jack's arm.

"Serenity ain't no hospital, doc," Mal said.

The ninja girl with the long hair tilted her head to the side as if listening to something none of them could hear. Sam wasn't going to lie; the girl gave her the creeps.

"We should help them," she announced.

"Ain't a charity foundation neither," Mal grumbled.

The girl raised a finger, pointing directly at Sam. "She can help us."

Now the Captain looked interested. "With the thing?"

"For certain," she said with a firm nod.

Mal stared at Sam for a moment and she fought the urge to tell him to hurry the fuck up, it wasn't like there was a man bleeding to death in front of him as he pondered.

"Okay," he finally said, gesturing for the man who'd been happily stealing from the dead to pick Jack up and carry him to some jumped up vehicle that looked like a MALP on steroids. "We take your man in and patch him up good and you promise to help us with one little job that needs doing. Deal?"

Sam's eyes narrowed. The last thing she needed in this God-forsaken galaxy was more trouble or a promise that was bound to come back and bite her in the ass. Not that she had a choice.

She nodded. "Just help him," she said, her voice a bit more desperate than she would have liked. God help them if Jack died.

Mal glanced sideways at the girl and she stared hard at Sam again. Sam refused to drop her gaze, even though it felt as if the girl was x-raying her.

"She means to keep her end of the bargain," the girl eventually said, and Mal nodded his understanding. "Though, if he dies, she'll burn us all down to dust."

Sam looked from the spooky kid to Mr. Tightpants. "She's not wrong," she confirmed.

Mal didn't seem too put off by that. "Fair enough," he said with a shrug.

And that was how Sam and Jack found themselves passengers on a rusty space bucket that went by the improbable name of _Serenity_.


	2. Welcome to Serenity

**Welcome to **_**Serenity**_

Mal and Jayne stood outside the infirmary watching Simon work on the man. Mal knew he was currently standing here to make sure nothing went south. Having two strangers on his ship didn't sit particularly well with him, no matter what River had to say about them. Jayne's motives were a bit murkier, though he seemed to have his mind otherwise occupied, his eyes glued to the woman. Mal had to admit, despite the mud and tangled hair, she was nice to look at, but he wasn't stupid enough to be fooled by that.

Jayne on the other hand…

"You leave her be, Jayne," Mal said. "That one's got a look about her. You may find you've bitten off more than you can handle."

'Course, for Jayne the warning didn't seem so much to deter as encourage him, the man's lips curving into a lecherous smirk. Mal shook his head, deciding he wasn't going to waste the time worrying. Instinct told him she could very well take care of her ownself, and if Jayne ended up with another hole in his backside, well, that was amusement Mal could use right about now. Plus, the Doc would surely patch him back up again before they had need of Jayne's specialized talents.

For now, they just needed to get _Serenity_ back to flying. He got the part Kaylee'd been demanding for ages, but she was still carrying on about it being a huge job and needing days to get it done. He didn't like the thought of being still that long.

Mal crossed the room to the woman's side where she intently watched Simon work. "What's your name?" he asked.

Shoving her still sodden blond hair behind one ear, she glanced sideways at him, a moment of hesitation long enough to make Mal wonder if she was getting ready to lie.

"Sam," she eventually said. He waited for a last name but she didn't seem inclined to supply it.

"Well, Sam, I understand you're a mechanic."

Her eyes widened momentarily before her surprise disappeared under a forcibly bland façade. "Then you understand wrong," she said, turning her attention back to the infirmary. "We're homesteaders."

She was lying, which didn't bother him overly much. There were all kinds of reasons for people to hide the truth. In this particular case he just didn't harbor patience for it.

"Sure you are," he said. "Jayne. Why don't you show Sam to the engine room?"

Jayne stepped forward eagerly, reaching for her arm. "Sure, Mal."

She wrenched her arm free of the touch, pivoting around into a wary stance he recognized as a sign of one used to defending herself. Now he was almost wishing Jayne _would_ try something.

"You want me to be here when he wakes up," she said, her head canting back toward her man. "Trust me."

Her accent was a bit queer, something he couldn't quite place, but almost as if she had a bit of companion training somewhere in her past. Though any gentility of prose fell short of masking the fact that her words were more threat than question. She'd do well to learn her place in the scheme of things.

Mal stepped closer to her, one hand lowering to his gun, unsurprised when she didn't give an inch of her ground. Yes, this woman certainly had gumption in spades. It was bound to get her killed.

"You're new, so I'll cut you some slack," Mal said, his smile more feral than welcoming. "Keep in mind that as Captain, I'm the only one giving orders around here, and I don't deal particularly well with disobedience. _Dong ma_?"

She looked confused a moment before her eyes traveled from his weapon to his face, her shoulders squaring and Mal had to rethink the companion background idea, there was something distinctly military about the way she held herself. Snapping her mouth shut on what was surely a mutinous response, she eventually nodded mutely, her eyes still glaring flinty shards at him.

Mal could say one thing for this woman, she would surely make things a mite interesting. He wasn't overly fond of interesting, it usually led to people trying to blast holes in his ship. "River says you've an eye for engines. _Serenity_ took a bit of a beating and Kaylee'd appreciate the help."

Her eyes darted back towards the unconscious man being treated under Simon's care before finally allowing herself to be drawn away.

"Suit yourself," she mumbled as she left.

It wasn't until hours later that Mal would understand he'd made a slight miscalculation.

* * *

Sam followed the bulky man with the improbable name of Jayne through the small corridors of the ship, trying to take in as much of the layout as she could. He kept sneaking looks back at her that she dearly hoped he didn't think were subtle. She got the distinct impression that he was one of those men where what you saw was _exactly_ what you got. What she saw as she followed him was a slightly pervy gunhand who probably wouldn't hesitate to shoot first and rob you second. Which pretty much answered the question of what he would do if he ever found out the Alliance currently had a rather hefty price on Jack and Sam's heads. Hopefully they would get the hell off this ship long before that became an issue.

Jayne stepped aside to ostensibly allow her to pass first into the next room, a show of gentility belied by the leer he gave her as she slid by, his eyes nowhere near her face. Knowledge that her still damp blouse no doubt gave him a lovely view did not help matters.

Sam took a deep breath and forced herself not to knock Jayne on his ass, carefully stepping clear of him and into the next room. Only one reason kept her from making it very clear that his attention was unwelcome: she might be able to take advantage of it at some point.

Logically, she knew there must have been a point in her life when she saw people as more than just advantages and disadvantages, but she'd been treating people as nothing more than angles to be manipulated for so damn long she couldn't remember the last time she'd met a human gaze with anything close to sincerity. It began to ache a bit, this constant high alert tension she'd been living with.

So when the mechanic for _Serenity_ turned out to be a young woman with a broad, honest face and easy joviality, Sam felt herself thrown a bit off kilter. She hadn't thought she'd actually like anyone on this ship.

"Thanks, Jayne, we're good here," the girl said, shooing him off with her fingers. Once he'd gone, she turned conspiratorially to Sam. "I figure we get a lot more done without him drooling over your shoulder."

Sam was surprised enough to laugh.

"I'm Kaylee," she said, sticking out her hand.

Sam took her hand, felt the slick of oil on her warm skin. There was something familiar and comforting about her that instantly set Sam at ease. "Sam."

"Welcome to _Serenity_." Kaylee patted the hunk of metal next to her affectionately.

"Thanks," Sam said. The ship was obviously well cared for, but Sam still got a rather cobbled together vibe from the engine room. Rather like _Serenity_'s crew.

Kaylee brushed a strand of hair out of her face, leaving a gritty smudge on her forehead. "Is your friend going to be okay?"

"Yes," Sam said, her hands clenching in her muddy skirt. Somehow having someone sincerely ask made it worse. "Simon seems to think so."

"Well, then he will be," Kaylee said with total confidence. "There's no better doc than Simon. Saved my own life more than once."

The girl got a bit of a dreamy look on her face and Sam ducked her head to hide her smirk. So that was how it was. She filed that tidbit away with all the others.

Kaylee spent the next ten minutes naming various systems and proudly pointing out any personal modifications she'd undertaken. Most of the words went right over Sam's head. This ship was unlike anything she'd been on so far. Then again, they'd spent most of their time huddled in holds of large transports. Her knowledge of Earth technologies only got her so far.

Sam waited until Kaylee was back to tinkering with the engine to start digging for information.

"I was wondering," Sam said as casually as she could manage.

"Yeah?"

"The girl…"

"River," Kaylee supplied.

"Yeah, River. How does she…I mean, what exactly…" For the life of her, Sam couldn't come up with a way to ask. The fighting, the creepy stares, the way she just seemed to know things.

Kaylee, however, got her gist, smiling and patting Sam on the shoulder. "She's a reader," she said as if that answered everything.

"A reader?"

"Yeah, you know, someone who can see into people's thoughts."

Sam didn't know whether to laugh or go and make herself a hat out of tinfoil. "You can't be serious." Frankly, of all the weird shit she'd seen in her life, the idea of a mind reader was by far the most frightening.

"You've seen it," Kaylee said with a shrug, wiping her hands on her overalls before diving headfirst back into the engine. "Could you hand me the kortan coupler?"

Sam looked down into the box of foreign looking implements and grabbed one at random, pressing it into Kaylee's outstretched hand.

Kaylee popped back out, giving Sam a strange look. "I thought you were supposed to know engines."

"I'm just a homesteader," Sam replied with a shrug.

Kaylee eyed her for another moment, suspicion resting uneasily on her face.

Probably for the best, Sam thought. The last thing she needed was to actually like anyone on board.

Kaylee pointed. "The blue one with the fat handle."

Sam picked it up.

* * *

"We have a situation in the infirmary, sir," Zoe's calm voice informed Mal over the comm a few hours later.

The 'situation' turned out to be the no longer unconscious patient holding a knife to Simon's throat. The guy had looked kinda soft when he'd been bleeding out in the mud, with his grey hair and pale face.

Wasn't a soft edge left now.

"Tell me someone bothered to search him before he was brought on board," Mal demanded, even though it was perfectly clear no one had.

Jayne mumbling, "Just let me shoot him," was the only answer he got. Frankly, Mal didn't know if he meant the stranger or the Doc.

"Where the hell is Carter?" the man demanded, apparently not for the first time.

Mal could only assume he meant Sam. "Would somebody get that damn woman in here?" Mal hollered.

Jayne darted out of the room with a nod.

By the time Sam appeared, having apparently dawdled as much as humanly possible along the way, she sent Mal a dark look that fairly screamed, 'I warned you.' At least she had the presence of mind not to say so out loud.

The man still had Simon around the neck, even as he wobbled a bit. Sam edged cautiously into his line of sight.

"Jack," she said, her hands held out in front of her as if approaching a spooked horse.

The man wobbled again, his eyes swinging wide before resting on her. "Carter," he responded in a rough voice, his hands tightening to judge from the lack of color in Simon's face. He looked her over from head to toe. Mal assumed he was checking her for injuries until he said, "What the hell are you wearing?"

Sweat dripped down his face, trailing past crazed eyes wide with something Mal recognized as dangerous. This was not a man to turn your back on.

"He's cracked," Jayne helpfully observed.

Sam ignored him, moving a little closer. "Jack, why don't you let go of the nice doctor?"

The man glanced at Simon and then back at Sam. "Where's Daniel and Teal'c?"

Who and what? Perhaps the man, Jack, had taken a knock to the head at some point as well. Sam didn't seem thrown by it though, still cautiously covering the distance to him.

"You've been injured," she said, her voice low and soothing. "The doctor is helping you."

Jack didn't look like he was inclined to believe her, his eyes narrowing. "I feel like I've been shot. Who the hell shot me?"

She sighed then, loudly and with irritation. Mal wondered for the first time if maybe she'd been the one to shoot him in the first place. "Don't you think story time can wait until after you've stopped bleeding?" she demanded, gesturing at his wound.

He glanced down to his side where blood was seeping across the nice, wide bandage. "Shit."

Sam smiled, taking a few more steps towards him, reaching out for the weapon. "Let me hold onto the knife for now, okay?"

He let her pull the weapon away, Simon slipping free as the grip on his throat loosened.

"Sam?" Jack asked uncertainly, something in his eyes finally seeming to come into focus.

"Yeah," she replied, lowering the knife to the table as her other hand lifted to his arm. "Everything's okay."

The touch seemed to calm him, but then his whole body swayed.

"I think I'm going to pass out," he announced and promptly lost his footing, Sam lunging forward to stop his fall. Simon stepped in to help her, apparently having already forgotten the man's attempt to slit his throat. Together, they controlled Jack's descent to the floor.

The guy did look deceptively soft when he was unconscious. Not a mistake Mal planned on making twice.

"I want him bound." Simon's mouth popped open in protest, but Mal just shook his head. "That ain't a request."

"Did you give him something?" Sam asked as they wrestled Jack back onto the table.

"Something for the pain," Simon confirmed, pulling back the bandages to check the damage.

Sam watched him work. "It might be better if you didn't."

Simon paused in his motion, looking up at Sam in confusion. "Why?"

She pressed her lips together, not looking inclined to answer.

"You tryin' to tell us that wasn't normal behavior?" Mal asked.

"He was disoriented," she said, "and he isn't the kind of man you want to feel confused. Or threatened."

That he had no problem believing. "Doc?"

Simon shrugged. "It's not unheard of for people to have adverse reactions to certain drugs, but I'm only using the most common kinds."

"Well, just assume Jack isn't common," Sam interjected.

Something in her tone made Mal suspicious again, but as her main goal at the moment seemed to be keeping her man from slaughtering anyone, he'd ignore it for now. "Do as she says, Doc, but I still want him bound."

Simon nodded absently, leaving it to Jayne to take care of the restraints. "He's just torn some of his stitches," he said to Sam. "He'll be fine."

"Thank you, Doctor," she replied with real relief, giving Simon a warm smile. It was sweetness Mal hadn't expected. 'Course that all leeched away when she turned back to him. "Permission to stay here?"

Mal flinched inwardly at the blunt edge of her sarcasm. He was beginning to think he should have taken his own damn advice and left her well enough alone.

He turned on his heel without responding, leaving Jayne to keep an eye on their guests.

The lunatic woman had better be worth it.

* * *

Jack woke to find Sam sitting next to him and his wrists bound to his bed. A situation that might not have been _quite_ so unappetizing if not for the lancet of pain in his side and the unfamiliar surroundings. Of course, he was getting pretty used to waking up in unfamiliar surroundings.

"Hey," he managed to croak.

Sam's head lifted from the edge of his bed. "Hey," she echoed. Her eyes traveled across his face as if assessing him.

Shifting slightly, Jack tugged experimentally at the restraints on his wrists. He quirked an eyebrow at Sam in question.

"You feeling any less crazy?" she asked, and only then did flashes of the last day come back to him.

"Much," he said, glad his head no longer felt like the worst parts of the seventies. He'd had some insane dreams. "Didn't maim anyone, did I?"

Her fingers ran gently through his hair, an incredibly soothing sensation that tempted his eyes back closed. "No. No maiming," she said. "Though you did try to slit Simon's throat."

"Simon?" he asked, his eyes cracking open again.

"The doctor that patched you up," she said, her eyes flicking behind him.

A dark-haired, clean-cut man stepped into his field of vision, looking slightly nervous. Not surprising if what Sam said was true. "Sorry about that, Doc."

The man shrugged. "Happens more often than you would imagine."

"Maybe it's the company you keep," Sam said.

Simon smiled wryly. "No doubt."

Looking past the doctor, Jack noticed another man lounging near the door, obviously armed, though if he was here to watch Jack, he was doing a poor job of it.

Jack glanced at Sam. "Is it just me, or is that guy ogling you?"

Sam didn't even bother to look in the direction he indicated, just sighed. "That's Jayne," she said, as if that explained it.

"Jayne?" he echoed. It seemed an improbable name for a guy with that many muscles and an obvious penchant for the ladies.

"How is the pain?" the doctor interjected, apparently trying to change the subject.

Jack's lips pressed together. It hurt like hell if he was honest. "I'll live," he settled for saying.

Sam's hand tightened on his arm. "Yes, you will."

"Good," yet another man said as he walked into the room with just enough swagger for Jack to suspect he was the leader of this little merry band. He was staring at Sam with an obvious mix of suspicion and annoyance. "That means it's time for you to keep your end of the bargain."

Jack did not like the sound of that. "Bargain?"

The leader turned to regard him, a humorless smile on his face. "You don't think we patched you up out of the goodness of our hearts, do you?"

Jack shoved up on his elbow, really not caring for the man's tone, but Sam's arm across his chest kept him anchored.

"For God's sake, Jack, you're going to rip your stitches again," she hissed in his ear.

"Mayhap he fears for your virtue," the leader said and Jack felt the urge to maim rising again.

Sam looked up at him. "He knows I can take care of myself."

Jack was about to protest that this had nothing to do with his faith in her abilities, but she not so subtly leaned against his wound and he bit back a groan. He didn't need to see her face to know she was giving him her 'don't be an ass, Jack' glare.

Some days he really missed being able to order her around. She was a lot less scary back then, he was certain of it.

"Let's go discuss the particulars," the leader said, stepping back out through the door.

Sam pushed to her feet to follow, but Jack stopped her, sitting up as much as he could between his wound and the restraints. "Sam."

She relented, dropping back. "I'll be fine. I don't get the sense that these people are out to get us."

"Yeah, real hearts of gold, I can already tell," he said with a grimace. His side really burned like a son of a bitch.

Sam lingered a moment longer, her expression shifting as her hand brushed his cheek.

It was so rare these days to see a crack in her shields, or even a moment of softness. That more than anything told him exactly how exhausted she was. "Sam?" he asked.

She shook her head, her eyes dropping away. "It was just a bit too close this time," she said, her voice lowered so as not to be overheard.

He remembered. He'd been fairly certain he wouldn't make it off that mud planet. She'd made it happen though, somehow. She always did.

"Hey," he said, catching her fingers with his. "There is no way I am leaving you alone out here, no matter how happy that might make Jayne."

There was the briefest flash of amusement on her face, but then she leaned in closer, her forehead touching his. "I will hold you to that, Jack O'Neill," she said fiercely. She brushed a quick kiss across his lips and stepped away, her all too familiar game face back in place.

"You done yet?" came the caustic voice of their leader.

Sam closed her eyes briefly as if gathering patience.

"Be careful," Jack couldn't help advising. If she was allowed to worry about him, he would damn well return the favor.

Sam nodded, plastered a neutral smile on her face, and followed the guy out of the infirmary.

Jack dropped back to the bed, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath against the fire of pain in his side. Not his best day ever, all things told.

His eyes snapped open when he heard the soft hush of someone moving nearby. A thin, graceful girl with long black hair stood at the foot of his bed, her head tilted to one side. She peered at him, not so much looking him in the eye as staring a hole into his forehead.

"You're so quiet," she said, "it's like you're not even here."

Jack felt something trail across his skin, a sort of itch that never boded well. "If you say so, kid."

She smiled, an empty gesture that didn't reach her eyes, and for some reason he got the feeling she was just as freaked out by him as he was by her. She moved back across the room to the far corner, folding herself up small, but never taking her eyes off him.

And so Jack was left with Jayne, the doctor, and a strange girl staring at him from her perch in the corner.

Just when he thought this damn galaxy couldn't get any weirder.


	3. The Bargain

**The Bargain**

Zoe was waiting in the mess when the Captain brought the woman, Sam, in. His jaw was set with annoyance and Sam didn't look much better pleased herself, despite her obvious relief that her man would be just fine as soon as he decided to stop trying to kill everyone.

He gestured for Sam to sit at the table and she did after a short hesitation that Zoe suspected was born more of stubbornness than any fear on her part.

Zoe stepped up to the woman, holding out a hand to her. "Zoe."

Sam looked surprised by the offer, but didn't hesitate to shake her hand, saying, "Sam."

Zoe always thought you could learn a lot about a person from a handshake. All she got out of Sam's was that it was a little too perfect. Not too weak, not too firm, her hand hovering perfectly at dry and warm. This only made Zoe more suspicious. It was too perfect not to be practiced. Like everything else about this woman, it said she was hiding something.

Zoe dropped her hand and pulled a chair out on the end of the table, settling in to watch as the Captain laid out the plan.

"So what exactly is it that you want me to do?" Sam asked.

"Well, my crew and I specialize in retrieval," he said, "and this particular job requires a special brand of discreetness that is above and beyond our normal range of skills."

"Why don't we just drop the bullshit," Sam said, leaning forward over the table. "You're thieves."

"Prefer to think of myself as a business man," the Captain said, his voice still congenial, but his eyes hard. "I provide valuable services to them that need it."

"To other criminals," Sam said, disapproval clear in her voice. Zoe wasn't quite sure what had happened between these two to create such open hostility, just wondered if the woman would be smart enough to figure out when to keep her mouth shut.

The Captain leaned into Sam. "You might want to crawl down off that high horse of yours long enough to think about what few options are open to you and yours. And no matter what you think of us, _we_ saved his damn life."

Sam's face flushed, her jaw tightening. She eventually dropped his gaze, looking down at the table and folding her hands together as if fighting to keep her temper.

"You can think of me whatever you want," he continued, "but if you do anything to endanger this crew-."

"I get it," Sam said, holding up her hands. Looking up to meet his eyes, she repeated it. "I get it. Just tell me what you want me to do."

The Captain and Zoe exchanged a glance. At his nod she retrieved the schematic print outs and put them on the table in front of Sam. Her eyes widened, looking over the pages with something like deep-seated thirst.

"It's a prison," Sam said after a moment, curiosity replacing hostility. "Trying to break out some friends?" Zoe caught her slight wince after the words left her mouth, probably angry at herself for goading him again so soon, but as Zoe expected, the Captain just smiled.

"Ain't the prisoners we're interested in," he said. "Out here, Alliance detention centers are about as close to a bank as one can get."

"Ah," Sam said. "Money." It might be Zoe's imagination, but Sam seemed relieved. What exactly had she expected of them?

He nodded. "Also valuables, information, rare items, and such."

That clearly caught Sam's attention, something in her posture shifting. "And this is an Alliance facility," she repeated. Her voice was mild at best and Zoe and the Captain shared another glance.

"That gonna be an issue?" he asked.

Sam's face took on a bland expression as she shrugged. "I certainly don't have fuzzy feelings for the Alliance if that's what you mean."

The woman was clearly hiding something again. That being said, Zoe was fairly certain these two stragglers were not working for the Alliance. They were in no way straight-laced nor ruthless enough. Not to mention Sam was nowhere near good enough at lying. An Agent could look you straight in the face and make you believe he was your long lost mother.

The Captain seemed to have come to the same conclusion, deciding to push on with the job. "Now our problem is that we need help getting around the security system. Nothing else quite like it this far out."

That was an understatement, Zoe knew. There was nothing quite like this security system _anywhere_ in the system, inner planets or not. Which was what made this job so appealing and so risky. If they could pull it off, they'd be set for a long spell, earn them some breathing space.

"We managed to get these specs," he said, gesturing at the pages Sam was still staring down at like a woman dying of thirst. "This is what we were assuming you could help us with, but seeing as how you are just a simple homesteader…" He reached to drag the specs away from her.

Sam's hands curled into fists as if forcing herself not to show her desperation. She took her time, leaning back in her chair. Zoe got the feeling that despite her calm exterior, the woman's mind was firing full spread. After a long moment she folded her arms across her chest. "Who says a farmer can't have picked up a few other skills here and there?"

A slow grin spread across the Captain's face. This was exactly what he wanted to hear. "Lucky for you."

"Lucky for us both, I'd say." Sam reached for the specs, pulling them back across the table and the Captain didn't stop her.

They watched her flip back and forth through the pages for a while and Zoe tried to find comfort in the obvious competence of the motions, the sharp intelligence revealed in the woman's eyes as she stared down at the pile of numbers and lines.

"So we got a deal, then?" he asked.

Sam stilled, her eyes no longer focused on the pages in front of her, but rather staring at some point just past them. "Not a simple thing to do," she noted, her voice casual once more.

The Captain's shoulders tensed. "Neither was saving your man, but we managed."

"True," Sam said with a slow nod. "But I still think we deserve a little compensation for such a risky venture. The Alliance has long arms."

Despite her words, Zoe suspected the woman didn't actually give a damn about payment. The Captain already looked more relaxed in the face of the demand though. Greed was something he understood, something safe and predictable and Zoe suspected Sam was more than aware of that.

There was a hell of a lot more to this woman then she was letting on, which only meant Zoe would be sure to keep an even closer eye on her. There was just something about all of this that she did not like, no matter how much they needed the job.

"We'll discuss it," the Captain eventually said, compromising on the issue of payment.

Sam nodded, her attention already back on the schematics. "And I'll start studying."

The Captain caught Zoe's eye and canted his head towards the hall. She followed him out. "You think she'll really be able to help us, sir?"

His lips pressed together. "I think we're just gonna have to trust River with this one."

Yes, because River was the steadiest in the bunch.

"I'm going to check in on her man," he said. "Make sure he's not aimin' to cause us any more trouble. I want you to keep her here."

"Of course, sir."

"Later you can set her up with quarters. A rest and some soap will probably do her a world of good."

Zoe spent a couple long hours watching the woman work, but didn't find any more clues. Deciding she'd given the Captain more than enough time to corner the man, Zoe went down to her quarters just long enough to grab a spare set of clothes. Sam seemed to be about the same size.

"I'll take you to your quarters," Zoe said.

Sam followed obediently enough, but Zoe didn't miss the way her eyes were methodically moving about the ship as they went, as if memorizing the layout. The Captain had decided to put their guests in quarters near the infirmary. Central enough to keep an eye on, but easily isolated from essential systems.

Zoe nodded at the sliding door. "You'll be staying here. The facilities are just down the hall."

"Okay," Sam said.

"Here," Zoe said, shoving the stack of clothing in her arms. "These should fit."

There was a flash of something on Sam's face as she took the bundle, something far different from the suspicion or sharp intelligence that Zoe'd seen before. It was softer, maybe, but gone just as quickly, and Zoe wondered if that had just been a flash of the real woman underneath all the posturing.

Zoe stretched out a hand to the door, stopping Sam from pulling it open. "Can you really do what you say?"

Sam looked down at the papers in her hand before looking back up at her. "Yes," she said, holding Zoe's gaze unwaveringly.

"Good," Zoe said with a nod. "Because if you're lying to us and one of mine gets hurt, I will be the one to make sure there's payment." As far as threats went, it was pretty straight forward, but Zoe didn't want there to be any room for misunderstanding.

Sam didn't appear offended, instead something in her face shifting, a sort of hard determination in her eyes. "I understand," she said. "More than you know."

Zoe nodded. "Okay then." She moved her hand from the door.

Sam pulled the door open, pausing to look back over her shoulder. "Thank you for the clothes."

Zoe waited until Sam disappeared into the room before heading toward her own bunk to catch a few hours rest. She would relieve Jayne of his watch over the strangers then. Despite her intention though, she simply stared up at the ceiling, sleep eluding her. Her head was full of the day's events, all of them leaving Zoe with an uncomfortable thought: she had a really bad feeling about this job.

Then again, for _Serenity_, that was just business as usual.

She closed her eyes.

* * *

Jack was lying on a low futon in what Mal had informed him were 'guest' quarters, despite the exterior lock on the door that belied it. Undoubtedly the Captain thought his people would be safer with him locked up in here. The Doc had argued the move, but as Mal had a stubborn look to him and Jack didn't harbor much love for infirmaries to begin with, Jack had reluctantly been released and left to his own devices.

Not that he doubted Jayne was sitting somewhere nearby, small arsenal strapped to his body.

Beyond all that though, the room was probably the most hygienic Jack had been in for months. They'd slept in some grubby damn places recently, from mucky barns to tiny closet-like hovels over the back of loud, skanky bars.

Good, calm moments were few and far between since he and Sam ended up stranded in this freak show of a galaxy.

He remembered one night they'd spent out in the trees near a small trade town. There'd been some sort of festival that night, a large bonfire in the street and music and dancing until the wee hours of the night. They'd slept out in the open that warm spring night, the sound of the party filtering in through the trees, the grass cool and springy beneath their bodies. She'd laughed a lot that night, he remembered, her lengthening hair catching flashes of firelight.

It was a good memory, but one marred by the long, dirty months since, their dwindling hope, and the damn painful reminder of just how close he'd come to dying out in the mud.

Then again, Jack thought he could probably blame his foul mood on the fairly insane conversation he'd just had with the Captain of this boat, and the devil's pact Sam seemed to have made to save his life. It was also possible the pain in his side was ruining his mood. Not being able to have painkillers in fear of going on a killing spree would make anyone grumpy, right?

All of which simply meant he'd been stewing in his own juices for almost an hour when Sam finally showed up.

She backed into the room, apparently talking to someone in the hall. She didn't turn until she'd pulled the door shut again. "Hey," she said, looking surprised to see him. "Should you be in here?"

Jack shrugged. "I'm not really bleeding anymore."

She still looked skeptical. Apparently that wasn't as reassuring as he intended.

"I guess Mal figured if I went crazy again, you'd be the first one I went after."

"Mal?" Sam echoed, as if surprised to hear him speak so familiarly of their dear Captain.

Jack's fingers twisted in the sheet covering his legs. "Yes. Mal," he said, struggling to keep his voice even. "He came by and we had a real friendly chat. You know, now that you've promised to help them _rob a bank_."

"It's a prison," she corrected, as if that actually made a difference.

"Oh, well, that's _much_ better," Jack snapped, abandoning any hope of keeping his temper. "Have you completely lost your mind?"

"I suppose letting you bleed to death would have been preferable," she said, her voice dangerously low, but still aggravatingly unconcerned.

"Dammit, Sam," he barked. "This is about keeping your head on straight and not making stupid, irrational decisions just because you're panicked."

Sam's back was to him, but he could see the way she went completely still at his words, the kind of stillness that didn't bode well for anyone within a mile radius. She took a careful breath, releasing it slowly. "You're severely injured on an unfamiliar ship and we both know how much you hate being out of control, so I think I'll do my best to pretend you didn't just say that to me."

Shit. Jack let his head drop back to the pillow with a muffled thud. Rubbing his hand over his face, he mumbled, "I don't even have a weapon."

Pulling a zat out from under her skirt, she crossed the room to hand it to him. "Better?"

"Much," Jack said, sliding it under his pillow. "Though I can't believe they didn't search you."

"Hey, I'm not the one running around trying to kill people," she said.

"Sam-."

She cut across him. "I'm going to get cleaned up." She disappeared out the door.

"Nice one, O'Neill," he muttered to himself.

Sam didn't return to the room for the better part of an hour, during which Jack did his best to quash his anger, knowing far too well that none of this was her fault. He knew that in her position, he would have done a hell of a lot more than rob a bank to save her life.

"Wow. I barely recognized you without all the mud," he quipped as she entered the room, testing out her mood.

She didn't smile as he might have hoped, but her voice was at least congenial when she spoke. "They have an honest to God shower," she remarked. Jack couldn't even remember the last time he stood under clean, warm, streaming water.

Come to think of it, this was the first time Jack had seen Sam freshly showered and wearing clothes that didn't try to swallow her whole in weeks. He looked her over, letting his eyes linger on the snug pants. Nice.

"Are you done?" she asked, not even bothering to look at him to confirm her suspicions that he was ogling her. Was he that predictable?

"Almost," he said, craning his neck. "I don't suppose you'd turn around real slow for me…"

Rolling her eyes, she ignored him, crossing the room to slide the door closed. There were two low futon-like pallets on either side of the room and Sam dragged hers across the floor next to Jack's without comment. He'd be warmed by the gesture if he didn't think she was probably more concerned about putting herself between him and whoever might come through the door as they slept.

She sat down cross-legged on the bed, her back to him as she pulled out folded sheets of paper he didn't recognize. Occasionally she jotted down a few sentences in her carefully rationed notebook that she'd made a practice of never letting out of her possession for even a moment. They never knew when they would have to jump ship without notice.

He watched the stiff profile of her back for a while, until he couldn't stand it anymore. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm an ass."

"Yes, you are," she agreed, not turning around to look at him. "But I knew that going in."

Not exactly a gracious acceptance of his apology, but he'd take it. The chances for make-up sex weren't looking good anyway, not with this damn hole in his side.

"Sam," he sing-songed, reaching up to tug at the end of her ponytail.

He didn't have to see to know she rolled her eyes, but she also sighed in defeat, turning slightly so he could see what she was working on.

"It's Ancient," she said, her voice low. "The security system in the prison."

"What?" he said, a little thrown by the abrupt change in topic. He was still intently watching the nice gap in her shirt.

"Well, not actually of Ancient design, but some sort of hybrid with standard Alliance technology and code."

Jack frowned, his mind catching up with her words. "And what made Mal think you could help them with Ancient technology?"

Sam opened her mouth and hesitated, throwing him a look that he knew meant she was about to say something he was going to have a problem with. "It's the girl. River."

Right. The creepy chick from the infirmary. "What the hell's up with her anyway? She's a bit…" He waved vaguely at his head.

She shifted her papers, not looking at him. "Kaylee, the engineer, says she's telepathic."

Jack felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. _You're so quiet, it's like you're not even here._

"Excuse me?" he said.

"A reader, as Kaylee called it."

There was no way he should believe that, but damn if he didn't. "No shit. Really?"

Sam shrugged, spreading out a sheet of schematics on the bed between them. "She knew I could help with the security system somehow. And then it turns out that it's based on Ancient tech? I mean, what are the chances?"

They hadn't spent much time discussing how a Chinese wild west show ended up in a neighboring galaxy, but looking at the specs, the question forced itself to the forefront again.

"This is weird, right?" Jack asked.

Sam's eyes were a little wide when she answered. "Definitely."

"Just checkin'."

Sam made a notation in her book and rubbed at her forehead. "On the plus side, I think I might be able to get into that Alliance database cortex thing while we are there."

Jack perked up at that. "Really?" They've been trying to find a way to get into the Alliance mainframe ever since they got here, looking for some trace of Daniel, some trail to follow.

"I don't know," she admitted, the stiffness returning to her back. She was back to looking defensive as hell, and he knew that was his fault. "But it's a worth a shot, right?"

"Sam," he said, touching her arm.

"What?" She turned to look at him.

He hated that he was leaving her to do this alone. Hated that he was stuck in this bed with a hole in his gut while she was forced to traverse the minefield that was this damn peculiar ship and its crew all on her own.

He didn't have to say any of that though and, not for the first time, he wondered if there wasn't maybe a little bit of reader in Sam as well. She folded the schematics, putting them carefully on the floor before sliding back across the bed, lying next to him, her head perched on his shoulder.

"I can do this," she said, lacing her fingers with his. "All you need to worry about it getting better."

He believed her. So he breathed in her clean scent and willed himself to relax, willed himself to forget that nothing at all was going their way.

"Tell me about the layout of the ship," he said.

* * *

Jayne looked up from polishing Vera to glare at the Doc and the stranger, who seemed to be taking their sweet ass time with today's check-up. Looking at Simon, one would be hard pressed to guess that his patient had tried to skewer him only three days before. Jayne still thought they'd have been better off letting him bleed.

And that had nothing to do with the blond who seemed to have eyes only for studying and the man. _Old_ man.

"There's something off about these two," Jayne grumbled.

Kaylee rolled her eyes. "You think that about any woman who don't automatically jump at the chance to share your bunk."

Jayne shrugged. Seemed a valid enough reason to him. "I'd think you'd be a bit more out of sorts that he almost slit your pretty boy's throat."

"Simon said he didn't mean it none. It was the meds."

In Jayne's mind, that was just another reason for suspicion. "We've all had a shot or two of the Doc's meds, and we ain't turned on each other yet."

Kaylee slid him a sideways glance and Jayne had the grace to look away. So maybe he'd tried to get River and Simon off this boat more than once, but he still thought himself justified. They _had_ ended up getting some of them killed in the end after all, hadn't they?

But that kind of thinking only raised Book and Wash in his mind and he'd had enough of seeing Kaylee's eyes filled with tears so he kept it to himself.

Simon and Jack came out of the infirmary then, and it was true that the stranger was looking better, not so much like a feather might knock him on his ass. Jayne didn't find that particularly comforting.

"Back in you go, then," Jayne said, shooing the man towards his room.

Jack shot him an annoyed glance, but didn't put up much of a fight, gingerly walking into the room. Jayne flipped the lock shut; glad to be done with the insanely boring job of making sure Jack didn't cut anyone up. Especially since the guy didn't seem inclined to give Jayne any reason to use force himself and wasn't that a disappointment.

Passing through the mess, Jayne saw Zoe leaning against a wall watching the woman at work, as she had been continuously for the last three days. He glanced at the pages as he passed, thinking it was unnatural, the way incomprehensible mumbo jumbo flowed out of her pen, sucking all her attention. Like she didn't have blood in her veins like normal folks.

Shaking his head, Jayne passed through to the bridge, thankful not to find Mal there. Only River sat at the controls. She didn't look up as he entered so he gladly ignored her in exchange.

Linking up to the Cortex, Jayne scrolled through the fugitive lists, seeing more than one familiar name flash past. The damn list seemed endless though. There had to be a quicker way to do this.

"What the hell was it that he called her when he went all crazy?" he grumbled to himself.

"Carter." Jayne looked up at River. She was still staring straight ahead out into the black, one hand on the controls, the other fiddling with one of Wash's dinos. "A traveler in the sun, a listener."

"What?" Jayne asked.

"Samantha Carter," she said, piercing him with one of those gazes that seemed to shout he was being thick somehow, when it was perfectly plain she was just _fong luh_.

When she didn't say anything further, Jayne entered 'Samantha Carter' into the Cortex and a moment later there she was, hair shorter, face cleaner, but definitely her, with her whack job man sitting right there next to her.

"One thousand credits," he read underneath.

It seemed things were finally going Jayne's way.

Hallelujah.


	4. The Job

**The Job**

Four days after Jack and Sam boarded _Serenity_, the ship touched down in the crowded, dirty urban sprawl of a border transport hub. From the brief glimpse Jack managed to get of the city, it was the same bizarre conglomeration of too many unwashed bodies, questionable cuisine, and bright neon signs that he and Sam had seen on any number of border planets during their long game of hide and seek with the Alliance.

Mal had informed them that in order to ensure Sam access to the prison on Shanxi, she would have to arrive by transport from a neighboring planet, mostly to lend credence to the entire hoax. Of course, this was just another part of this entire plan that Jack did not like. There was far too much chance that someone might recognize Sam from the bounty lists in such a centralized place. Not to mention that she was going to be traveling with only Jayne as companion.

No, there were a hell of a lot of things Jack hated about this plan. Not the least of which that he was still stuck in bed with stitches holding his insides together, watching Sam get ready.

"Creepy," Jack said, his eyes trailing over the standard Alliance uniform Sam was wearing. She had her hair slicked back into a tight bun low against her neck. The severe hairstyle seemed to sharpen the planes of her face, the grey of the uniform washing out her skin. She almost looked like a stranger. "I think I prefer the skirt."

She rolled her eyes and at least that looked familiar. "Well, I still have it. You can borrow it anytime you like."

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but snapped it shut again, realizing there was little point. Sam was firmly in mission mode, which usually took her sense of humor and whimsy as its first victims. Plus, the vision of him wearing her skirt was just _mean_ and now firmly entrenched in his mind.

"I still don't like the idea of you going down there with them alone," he said against his better judgment. Letting her go alone made his gut twist, went against every fiber of his being. He knew she didn't want to do this, but _still_ he couldn't help harping on it, no matter how much he knew she didn't want to hear it.

"And that might mean something if you were able to stand for ten minutes all together, but as it is, I don't see that we have much of a choice," she said, her back tense and her motions jerky as she finished filling a small matching grey pack with the necessary tools.

Shit. Jack didn't need her to tell him to know he was in no way helping the situation. Once again.

"Hey," he said, snagging her hand as she passed by, not really wanting to leave it like this. "Sam."

She closed her eyes, letting him tug her down next to him and leaning slightly into him as his arm went around her shoulders. He pressed his lips to her temple, but the tension in her shoulders just refused to leave.

"Just…be careful, okay?" he whispered against her hair.

She nodded, her fingers reaching out to tangle with his. "I promise."

* * *

Mal shifted his weight to his other foot, grimacing at the explosion of pins and needles in his newly unburdened leg. Settling once more behind the rock, he glanced at his watch yet again, and lifted the binoculars to peer at the building down in the valley below.

Shanxi. The Holy Grail of jobs, something few had even been able to dream of pulling off. It was enough to bring a smirk of pride to Mal's face.

The Shanxi job had popped up in various smuggler's grapevines over the last few months, a challenge passed from mouth to mouth, shared over campfires and whispered about in bars, more as a fairytale than anything. The job seemed _that_ insurmountable to most folks. For Mal though, it had always been something more. There was a time he would have avoided this sort of high profile score like a starved Reaver with a bone to pick, but _Serenity_ had been hurting since their run in with the Agent, hurting in a way he wasn't sure how to fix. A successful job and a huge pay off could go a long way, even if it was more distraction than rehabilitation in the end. Stability was a place to start at least.

Most days, carrying on was the only therapy Mal knew.

He focused the binoculars down on the scene below. The administration building sat adjacent to the bulk of the prison, an imposing solid grey block of a building that looked a bit like it had always sat there, having grown out of the surrounding scrub.

It was like this on some rim planets, where the place just refused to accept terraformation, at least not quietly. The air was just a little too dry, bitter on the tongue, and the brittle plain was prone to sandstorms. One was just beginning to build around them as the appointed hour neared.

Sam had gone ahead to the local depot, her arrival there cementing her cover as just another Alliance gopher gaining access to the facility under the guise of upgrading some of their systems. They'd paid a pretty penny for her false credentials, but if they pulled this off, it would be more than worth it.

The decision not to send Sam on her own was easy to make, it was the question of who to send along as her chaperone that was a might trickier.

He'd ended up sending Jayne to watch her, trailing a careful distance behind. Mal knew he didn't have to spell it out to Jayne; he was as self-serving and paranoid as any of them. He would make sure she made it to the planet, before hooking back up with Mal and Zoe. From there, they would just have to trust Sam on her own, as they didn't have the resources to smuggle two people inside the compound.

Now they just had to hope she was as good as River claimed.

Once inside, Sam was to access the systems and shut off the exterior locks and alarms on a small service door. Then Mal and Zoe were to go inside, find the correct box, grab it, and go. Simple. Easy.

In theory.

Through the growing haze, Mal caught the flicker of the exterior lights, once, twice, and then a third time.

"Sir," Zoe said, making sure he caught it.

Mal nodded. "She's in place."

Despite himself, Mal felt a beat of optimism. This just might be it, the ultimate score. Next to Zoe, Jayne pulled out Vera, wrapping the weapon carefully with cloth against the swirling dust.

"Let's go," Mal said.

They slipped out into the growing storm.

* * *

So far things had gone smoothly. It was a bit nerve-wracking to stroll into an Alliance detention facility, especially since Sam had spent the last six months trying to avoid ending up in a place just like this. Despite any lingering nerves, she managed to keep her cool. She'd become pretty adept at pretending to be someone else. It was Sam she lost sight of some days.

For the last hour she'd been crouched in a small auxiliary control room, ostensibly upgrading software for the sanitary systems. The strange thing was the fact that the mundane systems like sanitation and ventilation and lights were no different than any other standard Alliance technology she'd seen. It was only the security systems, particularly the ones in the storage area and prison cells in the lower subbasements that demonstrated anything remotely related to Ancient technology. It was a weird system, the one underlying the other, almost hidden. If Sam hadn't known what to look for, if she was really the low level tech she was pretending to be, she might not have seen it at all.

But she did know it was there, so after clearing the way for Mal and the others to get in to the storage facilities, Sam spent the rest of her hour poking around the hidden systems, trying to make sense of it. The integration of Ancient code and technology was clumsy at best. There was only the occasional use of a crystal as a cobbled together power source, but most of the circuitry was still silicon based, even if a more advanced application than they used back home on Earth. Other than that, there was simply a thin veneer of not-quite-right Ancient base code adding an extra level of protection, like whoever had implemented it had been flying blind, using a technology they didn't quite understand.

Sam just couldn't quite make heads or tails of it. She jotted down some notations before turning her attention back to the surveillance cameras. She was also making a copy of the Alliance mainframe in hopes that she might find some mention of Daniel when she got the chance to comb through it later.

Like the security system, some of the surveillance was on a separate circuit as well, in particular the ones dedicated to the sub-basements. Sam flipped through the available camera angles, most of which revealed nothing but empty chambers or the occasional staff member in white lab coats rather than Alliance guard uniforms.

She flipped through the last ten cameras, only to freeze.

Was that?

She clicked back to the previous view as her brain began to process what, or rather _who_ she'd just seen.

"Shit," Sam breathed.

Vala Mal Doran.

Other than Daniel's near murderous descriptions, Sam had only ever seen photos of the woman, but there was no mistaking her sitting in that tiny cell. Of all the prisons on all the planets… Sam couldn't quite decide if this was a stroke of good luck or a really, really bad sign of things to come.

Like they really needed any more bad luck.

With her heart in her throat, Sam queried the computer mainframe, searching for Daniel's name among the list of prisoners. She was more disappointed than she should have allowed herself to be when the query returned negative. Pull it together, Sam, she chided herself. They were not going to just trip over him one day.

Vala Mal Doran and the memory core would have to be enough for now. At least it was a trail to follow, which was a hell of a lot more than what they've gotten so far.

Sam stared at the video feed of Vala, her fingers dancing out a staccato on her knee. By her calculations, the files shouldn't take more than five minutes to finish cloning. Which left her at least fifteen minutes until rendezvous time. She just might have time for both. There was just the small problem of how Mal would react to finding himself with yet another passenger.

Sam needed Mal and his continued latitude to get off this God-forsaken rock.

"Screw it," Sam said. Pulling up a schematic of the lower floors, she tracked the path to Vala's cell. The fact that she was in one of the lowest levels, held separate from the main population of the prison, would make a break out at least possible. It wouldn't take much to disable the isolated circuit in the lower floors. Of course, making an exit would be another thing all together.

Once it was done, Sam yanked the memory core, and quickly repacked her bag. She just might be able to get there and out again without getting caught.

She could deal with Mal Reynolds later.

* * *

From her perch in the corner, Vala heard the scrape of metal on metal as someone pulled open the observation peephole into her cell. She didn't glance up to see who was looking in on her, just continued to stare at the small square of light on the floor as it made its long progress across the floor, marking yet another day.

She'd learned only too well how to make herself small and uninteresting since she arrived in this godforsaken place.

She only looked up when the locked groaned and the door pushed reluctantly open. She drew her legs into her chest, her fingers digging into her shins. The figure that entered the cell was unfamiliar to her, Alliance uniform or not.

"Vala?" the specter said, stepping into the room with the door still partially ajar.

The woman's next words went unheard, Vala's entire attention riveted on the small slice of open space behind the guard, the sloppy, lax behavior suggesting that enough time had passed since her last attempted escape for the guards to get lazy.

Shifting onto her feet, Vala crouched unobtrusively, judging the reaction of the guard. The woman was still moving cautiously across the room.

Fool.

Vala sprang into action the moment the other woman was close enough. She got one good hit in, low in the belly, before her opponent sidestepped, using Vala's own momentum against her, slamming her into the opposite wall.

There was the clear click of a weapon arming in the silence that followed, the press of metal against Vala's skull unmistakable.

"Vala Mal Doran," the guard said, the words low and clear. Out of the corner of her eye, Vala could still see a sliver of the hallway through the door. The voice continued, a heavy whisper against her ear. "I know you have no reason to believe I am who I say I am, but what are your senses telling you?"

The guards didn't usually talk. Psychological warfare was too sophisticated for their meager intelligence. So despite her skepticism, Vala quieted for a moment, just long enough to absorb the hushed keen of the storm outside, the rough stone under her cheek, and there, right underneath, something else entirely. Something she hadn't felt for well over a year, not since before she came to this galaxy.

The fact that this galaxy seemed Goa'uld free might just be the only thing going for it.

The gentle tingle up her spine cleared Vala's head, momentarily erased the mindless urge to escape. She relaxed against the stone in front of her, and felt the gun leave the back of her head.

"Now, why don't we try those introductions again," the woman said, letting up just enough for Vala to turn and see her face. "I'm Sam Carter."

If it weren't for the undeniable sensation telling her a Goa'uld had once possessed this woman, Vala would have assumed it was some trick. "Daniel's friend," she said, words thick on her tongue.

"Yes," she confirmed, still looking wary, but backing slowly away.

Vala let her eyes close, just a moment of sheer, crawling relief. Daniel had always said his team would come, but she hadn't believed him. Apparently she had been wrong. And if Sam Carter had come here for her…

"Daniel?" Vala asked.

Sam shook her head. "Not yet," she said, her hand disappearing momentarily behind her to pull clear with another weapon, which she handed to Vala. "What do you say we get out of here?"

Vala nodded, hefting the comforting weight of the weapon in her hand. Just leaving the cell was enough to bring some semblance of control back. Each step she took brought a surge of energy into her limbs, her mind whirring back into motion.

Vala followed behind Sam, reassured by her steady, competent movement through the halls. Vala glanced at the cameras lining their path, but all of them seemed to be off. Apparently this was not Sam's first prison break out, as she seemed to know what she was doing.

Two levels up, they reached what looked like an emergency exit that hadn't been used in centuries, if the rust was any indication. Wrenching a nearby panel open, Sam fiddled with it while Vala kept one eye on their back. With a crackle of sparks, the entire section went dark as the door groaned open, just enough to let a shaft of natural light into the hallway.

Next to her, Sam grimaced. So much for a stealthy exit. "Crude, but effective," Sam said, pulling a few beige pieces of fabric out of her bag, handing one to Vala.

They both wrapped the cloth tight around their heads, leaving a small slit of space to see out. Outside, the storm still had not blown itself out completely, a lucky break that would cover their retreat. Sam pulled a device out of her pocket, a slow beeping noise coming to life, guiding them in the right direction of their escape, Vala could only hope.

Together, they pushed out into the storm. After ten minutes struggle against the winds and sand, the dark outline of a vehicle of some kind began to grow in the weak protection of a low bluff. There was already one man standing next to it.

He shouted something at them Vala couldn't quite make out, but Sam just ignored him.

"Get in," Sam yelled in her ear.

They didn't have long to wait in the partial protection of the vehicle, as another group of people approached just as she took a seat.

"Who the hell is this?" one of the new arrivals demanded, his eyes taking in Vala's prisoner garb.

"She's with me," Sam said, her hand tight around Vala's upper arm.

The man looked like Sam had started talking in tongues. "Are you completely insane?"

"She comes with me," Sam repeated with unbending stubbornness that reminded Vala of Daniel. Maybe it was a Tau'ri trait. Might explain how they managed to finish off the Goa'uld.

The man's face seemed to split with rage and Vala thought he was dangerously close to shooting Sam. Or leaving them both behind.

"Captain!" another woman shouted.

He glanced back between the two women, letting out a long string of Chinese.

"You plan on taking off at any point?" Sam asked. "Or are we just waiting for the Alliance to figure out what just happened?"

The man nodded at the woman behind him, a tight, angry gesture, and the woman dropped into the driver's seat. Then he leaned into Sam, his voice gravel above the ferocity of the storm. "You and I are going to have some serious words when we get back to _Serenity_. You got me?"

Sam didn't back away from the assault, simply shifted slightly in front of Vala and shouted back, "I can't wait!"

The roar of the vehicle kicking into a stumbling trot killed off any further opportunity for yelling and Sam settled back into the small space next to Vala, one arm still reaching across her as if making a visual claim.

Vala stared through the small slit in her wrap and watched each of the people in the small vehicle.

It was pretty clear to her that she'd left one prison for an even stranger one.


	5. The Reckoning

**The Reckoning**

The mule tucked into the ship, hitting the ramp with a thump. Before the machine even came to a full stop, Mal pulled his weapon and turned to Sam, Jayne following suit.

Sam didn't react any that Mal could see, one arm still stretched across the prisoner, who was warily glancing from weapon to weapon.

The hull of the ship cut out the sound of the ferocious wind outside, dumping them into sudden silence as the doors slid shut and Zoe killed the engine.

"Your weapons," Mal said, cocking his gun when Sam didn't move quickly enough for his taste. Behind him, he felt Zoe's steady presence as she stepped up behind him.

Sam gave an almost invisible nod to her friend, and both of them slowly pulled their weapons out, handing them butt first to Zoe.

"And the knife," Mal said, gesturing at Sam's boot.

Sam sighed, but complied, handing over the knife.

"Get us to the meeting point," Mal said to Zoe, not bothering to watch as she slipped out of the room.

He then gestured for the two remaining women to get out of the Mule, following behind them towards the lounge outside the infirmary. Simon came out, looking surprised to find Mal holding Sam at gunpoint, but was wise enough not to say anything.

Mal flicked his gun towards the couch, indicating he wanted Sam to sit, but she just folded her arms across her chest, apparently having given him as much cooperation as she wanted for the day. "If you're really going to shoot us, Mal," she said, "could you just get it over with?"

Her tone told him she didn't really believe he was going to shoot either of them, and damn her, she was mostly right. Mal slammed his gun back into his holster, taking a step towards her. "I'm of no mind to hit womenfolk, but you make it damn tempting!"

Mal's rage only multiplied with the appearance of Jack behind her, looking grey around the gills and wobbly as all hell, but intent on watching his woman's back.

"I'd like to see you give it a try," Jack said with a grin that looked more like a grimace. "Even if just to see her kick your ass."

Sam threw Jack a look over her shoulder before returning her regard to Mal. "I got the job done. I did everything you asked."

"Plus a bit more," Mal snapped, gesturing at the prisoner, "which is the problem I'm having."

Sam's lips pressed into a firm line, telling him she wasn't inclined to give anything away. As for the female prisoner, Mal wasn't convinced she was actually capable of speech, so silent was she.

Simple homesteaders, his ass.

"Give me one goddamn good reason not to vent you all out the airlock."

"Ah, hell, Mal," Jayne complained. "Let's at least turn them in for the reward."

Sam's eyes widened a bit and Mal nodded. "Oh, yeah. We know all about the little bounty on your heads. You weren't lying when you said you're not the best of friends with the Alliance."

"No, I wasn't," Sam admitted. "I sort of doubt you're outraged on their behalf though."

"Thousand credits ain't no small lump of change. Care to give me a reason not to partake of this particular windfall?"

From the expression on her face, Mal was sure her answer was going to be scathing, only she never got the chance to voice it because the ship shuddered violently underneath them.

"We've got company, sir," Zoe's voice called over the comm.

Of course they did. Why was it that they could never just complete a simple job without all manner of complications mucking everything up?

"Jayne," Mal said. "Lock them up someplace. I'll decide what to do with them later." The ship shuddered again. "If we survive, that is."

"Why is everyone always shooting at us?" Jayne complained as he pulled his weapon on their three guests, waving them back into the room behind them.

Mal left him to it, running up the stairs two at a time. "Kaylee!" he hollered as he ran for the bridge.

"She'll hold together, Cap'n!" she could be heard to yell back.

He hoped so.

* * *

The lock slid home with a loud clunk and Vala fought back a beat of panic at once again being trapped, though the door looked flimsy enough, all things told. She took a moment to calculate the amount of force that kind of lock might take to burst, the exact angle needed to finesse it open and the exercise calmed her breathing enough for her take a step back, shuffling into the corner to watch her fellow cellmates move about the room.

Sam seemed to be taking their treatment in stride and Vala couldn't see any other option than trusting her. For now.

"Jack," Sam said, crossing over to the other person in the room, a man with the pinched look of recent illness and a scruffy mop of graying hair. Sam's hands were gentle on him as she wrapped an arm around him. "Why don't you sit down before you fall down?"

"I'm fine," he grumbled, but he didn't resist as she bullied him down onto the pallet, leaning back against the pillows with a sigh of relief.

"Jack O'Neill," Vala said, breaking her long silence. Jack O'Neill was a name she heard almost as often as Sam Carter, back in the days she'd still been with Daniel.

The General looked up at her, tossing her a nod of acknowledgment and she could see it now, the steel and competence hidden under the flippancy. Dangerous under the wrong circumstances.

"Ms. Mal Doran," he drawled. "Fancy running into you in this little corner of the universe."

Sam stepped across the room, grabbing a canteen and taking a long swig before tossing it to Vala. Her fingers clenched around the object as she forced herself to drink slowly and calmly as if it hadn't been a while since she last fully slaked her thirst.

"So, Vala," Sam said, sitting down on the edge of the low bed next to Jack. Vala analyzed the way they sit close enough to touch, but not quite, some tiny sliver of distance there. "We need you to tell us everything that happened since the moment you put the stones in the Ancient device."

Vala took one last small sip out of the canteen, leaving what she could, setting it down in an easily accessible spot. "You mean when the harmless communication device dropped us ass first in this insane galaxy?" she asked, keeping her voice light.

Sam's lips curved into a half-smile, something soft there under the wryness that seemed to read as sympathy. Vala looked away from her.

"Pretty much, yeah," Jack said.

"Where did you first appear?" Sam asked.

"Londinium," Vala said, remembering the bustle and splendor of the huge city, the elegant, arcing skyscrapers that seemed to float above the grids of streets below. It was undeniably beautiful, but like most beautiful things, it turned out to be a lie.

"The capital city," Sam said.

"Yes," Vala confirmed.

It was Daniel and Vala's bad luck that not only had the Ancient device in fact been a transporter ("Well done, Daniel."), but that it had also dumped them, in full daylight, in the middle of a busy street. With surveillance footage and hundreds of eyewitnesses, it was hard to pretend they hadn't just been unexpectedly dumped out of the sky. Added to that the fact that they'd landed a bit too close to the civilization's Parliament and Vala and Daniel's introduction to the Alliance had not been pristine from the start.

Vala sat down on the ledge behind her, looking down at her hands folded in her lap. Every single nail was broken and ragged, dark moons of filth at each tip. "We were taken into custody within fifteen minutes of appearing."

"Alliance?" Jack asked, a rumble of distrust under the word telling her that he was already well aware of the many foibles of the Alliance.

Vala nodded.

They had been polite, but suspicious from the beginning and even Daniel had been smart enough to watch his tongue, no matter how seemingly civilized their hosts. It was hard to hide the truth though, not when they were so obviously alien and out of their depth. Not to mention that from the very onset this Alliance seemed to have had a rather large stick shoved up its ass. The delegation assigned to them mostly stared at Vala with appalled discomfort.

Vala pushed back to her feet, meandering the length of the room, her eyes sliding over every inch of the walls and ceilings. "They never trusted us from the beginning," she said, "but that might have had something to do with the fact that we were lying to them. Their paranoia and fascist obsession with order were pretty obvious and Daniel thought it might be better not to tell them who we really were."

"Yeah," Sam said with a hollow laugh that echoed bitterly in the small space. "We tried that too, for all the good it did us."

Vala shrugged. "At least they were predictable. At first."

"What do you mean?"

Vala reached the end of the room, turning about to lean back against the wall. "About two months into our incarceration on Londinium, someone came to our cells in the middle of the night. Took us to a small moon they called Metis, and suddenly we were in a country estate instead of a city. They gave us bedrooms, real ones, without locks on the doors."

Jack and Sam shared a puzzled look. "Then what happened?" Sam prodded.

"They treated us like guests. Conversations, not inquisitions. All elegance and nice manners. It was almost enough to make us believe they had good intentions." Almost. "Well, Daniel at least," she amended with a flippant wave of her hand. "I've always been a bit more cynical myself."

There was also the fact that their hosts clearly had little use for Vala. And if she liked to shock them just to blow off steam now and again, well, she'd always believed you could tell a lot more about a person from how they reacted to conflict rather than charm. She never missed the hardness of their expressions, the way they were capable of looking at Vala as a thing rather than a person.

She should have known then.

"Did you know who these people were?" Sam asked.

Vala shook her head. She wasn't the one they'd been interested in. Daniel was the golden child, the one of interest. "They were real scholastic types. It was always texts and artifacts with them."

"Daniel must have gotten along with them great," Jack noted dryly.

Vala gave him a thin smile. "At first maybe."

"At first?" he asked, one eyebrow lifting.

"We'd been there for maybe four months when everything changed. They separated us, and this time their questions weren't nearly as…polite." Vala paused, smoothing her breathing out and swallowing against the memory of their efficient, nasty little machines. "When it became clear I knew nothing of import, they shipped me off to Shanxi. Solitary confinement, just in case I proved more willing to discuss things with strangers. I never saw Daniel again."

She lapsed back into silence then, with the stale taste of Shanxi sharp in her throat. She grabbed the canteen and took another heavy swallow. Sam and Jack were sharing some sort of unspoken conversation before turning back to look at Vala.

"Do you think Daniel is still alive?" Jack asked. Next to him, Sam flinched. His hand went to her back, the barest touch, comfort or apology maybe for the question, but the resolve on his face didn't lessen.

Vala shrugged one shoulder. "As far as I know, Daniel is still playing happy scholars on Metis," she answered flippantly, because the truth was she had no idea what might have befallen Daniel. She didn't like to spend too much time thinking what might happen to him when they got tired of his lack of cooperation.

Jack didn't seem to think that was any sort of answer though, his gaze shifting into something hard and piercing. Vala tried not to hate herself for looking away first. She'd been forcing herself to avoid that same question for months now. Because if Daniel was dead, then no one was ever coming, not even his long shot fantasy of friends who didn't know the meaning of impossible. It was seductive, that fantasy, more than she ever wanted it to be.

But now she was staring that fairytale in the face and she was having a really hard time trusting it.

"They had no real reason to keep me alive," Vala admitted. "But they did anyway, just on the small chance that I might know something useful to them in the future. That tells me they aren't the sort to waste."

It was the only answer she'd ever been able to come up with. Daniel was alive. He had to be.

"Okay," Jack said. "Thank you."

Vala pulled her sleeve down over her hand. She'd almost forgotten how cold space could be. "Do you have any food?" she asked, keeping her voice even and matter of fact.

"Of course," Sam said in a rush, her expressive face betraying her once again. Pity and horror, and a sense that she might know what Vala had been through. She didn't have a clue.

Vala took the ration bar, eating one small square and pocketing the rest by instinct.

Sam and Jack started rehashing everything Vala told them. Vala watched them and reminded herself that for all Daniel trusted these people, she didn't know anything about them. Didn't know what they might be willing to trade—or sacrifice—to get Daniel back, including her.

Vala sat back in the corner, running through all the people she'd seen on the ship so far, memorizing names and filtering impressions, working each one like a puzzle piece, playing out her options, any way for her to land on her feet.

There was one thing Vala did know. She was finally free of that sucking black hole of a prison, and she had zero intention of _ever_ going back.

* * *

No one came back for them, but the fact that the ship was still in one piece seemed to bode well for the outcome of the battle. Now they just needed to wait and see if Mal would follow up on his threat to vent them all out into space.

Sam figured the more time that passed the better Mal's temper would be. Or at least they could hope.

Sam spent the last few hours jotting down everything they'd learned from Vala into her notebook, asking for occasional points of clarification, or Jack's opinion about something. The data under her fingers was beginning to take on a pattern of sorts, but she still didn't have it quite pinned down. Too many things still didn't make sense.

"Did you ever happen to see anything at all that might be Ancient while you were on Londinium?" Sam asked Vala.

Vala had gone quiet a long time ago, now lying on her back on the futon they'd dragged back to the other side of the room for her. She lifted one hand in the air as if studying her fingernails. "Not that I recall," she said, "but I wasn't really looking for it either."

Yeah, Sam thought. From what Vala had told them, she and Daniel had had a lot more on their minds than the various quirks of this galaxy. "So the first time you saw anything Ancient was on Metis."

Vala's arm dropped back down. "Yes."

Sam frowned, biting on the end of her pen. She could feel Jack shift next to her.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"I'm wondering why Mal and his crew had never seen anything like the security system on Shanxi before. From what I gather, they have more than enough experience with the Alliance to know their systems backwards and forwards."

"Because it wasn't Alliance?" Jack guessed.

It made a strange sort of sense. The special systems, Daniel and Vala's mysterious removal from an Alliance facility in the middle of the night. "And if Shanxi is as much of a backwater as Mal made it sound, why is there such a sophisticated system in place?"

"There's something there," Jack surmises.

Sam nodded. "I think it probably wasn't an accident that Vala was being held there too."

"So you're thinking that Shanxi is being controlled by the same people as Metis. The people holding Daniel."

"It's possible," Sam said. She looked over at Jack. "Which means, in all possibility, the people Mal just stole from were not the Alliance, but Daniel's captors."

He slid her a look. "You're saying we need to know what Mal took."

"Yeah. I think so."

Jack sighed. "Of course we do."

It was almost five full hours before Mal returned, leading them all out into the small living space next to the infirmary. Sam sank down on the couch next to Jack, Vala remaining back by the door, as if doing her best to be a fly on the wall.

"I hope you've given a bit more thought to being cooperative," Mal said, Zoe standing silently next to him. He turned to look at Vala. "You can start by telling us who you are."

"She's with us," Jack said before Vala could answer. "That's really all you need to know."

"Your friend got a tongue?" Mal asked.

Vala smiled, her entire demeanor shifting, so much so that Sam had the feeling she was looking at an entirely new person. Vala tossed an appraising glance in Jayne's direction where he hulked in the background. "Sure do, handsome. And I know how to use it too."

Jayne brightened measurably, the arm crossed protectively over his monster of a gun flexing.

Apparently Daniel's descriptions of Vala had not been exaggerated even a tiny bit.

Mal looked surprised and not a little smug at this unexpected outburst. "Funny," he drawled, "Never thought such upstanding citizens as yourselves would have friends in such fine places as a prison."

Shit. Sam knew that crack about criminals and low lifes was going to come back and bite her in the ass. "Look," she said, deciding sticking as close to the truth as possible might be the best tactic. "I didn't know Vala was there until I saw the feed on Shanxi. I couldn't just leave her."

"I believe I remember making it very clear what would happen if you did anything to endanger this crew."

"And I didn't," Sam said. "We got away clean." She deliberately didn't look at Vala, who was the only one who probably understood just how graceless their exit really had been.

Mal took a step toward Sam. "If'n you don't count the Alliance cruiser that almost nabbed us in orbit!"

Sam shared a glance with Jack. "Are you sure they were Alliance?" she asked.

Mal dragged a hand over his face, a gesture of raw frustration with the direction this conversation was going, no doubt. "I think I can be trusted to know what an Alliance scout blasting across my gorram prow looks like!"

"Of course," Sam said, leaning back against the couch, her hands held up in a belated attempt to appease the man currently deciding their fate.

Mal, for his part, looked like he was beginning to get one hell of a headache. "Put them back in the room," he said wearily, waving Jayne forward.

"Mal," Sam called out to forestall his departure. "I need to know what you took from Shanxi."

Mal looked heavenward for a moment, mumbling something under his breath. "Just why in the hell would I tell you that?"

Sam didn't really have an answer for that, darting a glance at Jack, who just shook his head.

"I know you don't have any reason to trust us," Sam said. "I just…I think there's a lot more going on here than it seems. You should be careful."

For a second it looked like Mal was going to brush her off with yet another sharp retort, but instead he just shook his head. "Look," he said, sounding tired. "We finish up this job, do the drop, and then we'll let you off at the next nearest port, no harm done. Okay?"

It was probably the best they could hope for, all things considered.

"Okay," Sam agreed, watching Mal disappear back up towards the bridge.

She just had a bad feeling it wouldn't be that easy.

* * *

They've just entered the outer edge of the Kalidasa system, a short jot out from Aberdeen when _Serenity_ swooped to a stop with all the grace of having dropped the engine some space back. Mal looked down at the controls in his hands in confusion, already reaching for the comm to holler at Kaylee when he realized his control had been preempted by the other station.

Mal looked over to see River in the secondary seat, something she was wont to do from time to time. She had one bare foot up on the edge of her chair, her fingers tight around the controls.

"Sir?" Zoe asked, appearing up on deck, no doubt also wondering about their sudden stop. She followed Mal's gaze to River.

"This is wrong. It's all wrong," River said, lifting up to press her fingers against the glass. "Greedy hands and hungry eyes—only hid from sight."

Mal couldn't pretend to understand half of what came out of River's mouth at any given time, but he knew that tone, the pose of her body, the way she looked like she'd love to fold back inside herself if such a thing were possible. He knew enough to take caution when she offered it.

Mal looked at Zoe. "Let's contact Miles just to make sure everything is as it should be."

Zoe nodded her agreement, crossing over to the controls. A few moments later, the broad, homely face of their contact filled the small screen.

"Hey, Miles," Mal greeted him, noticing the rather fine weave of his shirt that said he'd been moving up in the worlds these days. "We're a few hours out. Just wanted to let you know everything is still on schedule."

On the other side of the deck, River started a low crooning sound under her breath, shaking her head back and forth.

"Great to hear," Miles said congenially, his face pressed right up close to the screen. "Meet at the usual spot, eh?"

"Sure thing," Mal said. "That sister of yours gonna be around?"

Miles' easy-going expression broke for a moment, something of rage building in the crease between his eyes before it wiped clean. "Ah, Mal," he said, his voice chillingly satisfied right under the forced pleasantness. "You always were one to go looking for trouble."

Mal smirked. "What can I say, sometimes trouble just finds me irresistible."

Miles' smile only widened, any more unpleasant emotions only betrayed by the slight tic in his jaw.

"See you in a few hours," Mal said, the smile slipping off his face the moment the comm went dark.

"He's setting us up," Zoe commented.

Mal nodded, dragging a hand over his face. Miles had a notorious temper and a not-so-forgotten past with Mal. He should have blown up at Mal, told him to take the product and shove it up his ass, anything other than calm pleasantries. Miles clearly wanted the deal to go down, was itching for it.

There was no way they could go in for the drop now.

The one annoyance in the whole thing that lingered was that Miles was a browncoat. He may have a temper like a son of a bitch, and the manners of a mud farmer, but nothing in God's great 'verse would make Miles cooperate with the Alliance. Nothing.

'_Are you sure they were Alliance?'_ Sam's helpful voice asked once again in his mind.

"_Lao tyen yeh_," he muttered, "_xianzai wo pai."_

"Not sure that will help, sir," Zoe said.

A hot product and no one to load it off on. Alliance a few steps behind, a new player two steps ahead. And three strangers on his boat. It was enough to make his neck itch.

"What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" he asked.

Zoe shifted next to him, her voice dropping an octave. "I think I know just who to ask."

Mal supposed he should just be thankful she hadn't said 'I told you so.' He really had to stop picking up strays; it just _never_ ended well.

He felt the ship hum back to life beneath him, glancing over to find River looking to him, a question in her eyes. "Yeah," he said. "Get us out of here."

Anywhere but here.

Under her guidance, _Serenity_ slipped back out into the black, smooth and graceful in a way that was unique only to those two. River lacked the inventiveness and daredevil speed of Wash, but she had a way with _Serenity_, not so much commanding her as simply letting the ship have her head. He could feel it, the way _Serenity_ was different under her hands.

He turned to Zoe. "Let's go talk to our guests."

Mal had this whole plan about how he was gonna approach Jack and Sam, how he would work his way carefully around to the problem at hand without revealing too much because the last thing he needed was for them to have the upper hand.

Then he opened the door, saw them sitting there with their prisoner friend and just blurted, "Would someone care to tell me just what the _wuh de ma_ is going on?"

So much for that plan.

Sam pushed to her feet. "What's happened?"

"The gorram buy is a trap."

Sam and Jack shared a glance. Mal did not like the way they looked completely unsurprised.

"I'm gettin' real tired of this damn game. We all know you ain't homesteaders. So if you know what the hell is happening, now if the time to tell me."

Sam nodded. "It's a long story. But if you show me what you took, maybe I can tell you what you've gotten yourself into." All of her bluster was gone now, just a weary sort of acceptance in its place and for some reason that put him at more ease than anything else this day had.

Or it could just be they both knew that he was hell and gone out of options.

He nodded at Zoe. "Bring it up to the mess."

It took both Zoe and Jayne to heave the crate up on the table. Kaylee and Simon wandered in right behind, and now there were eight of them huddled around the table together staring at it. Not looking inside had been one of the stipulations Miles had passed on to them, giving them only a lot number. Just more reason to take a look.

"What's going on, Cap'n?" Kaylee asked.

"Hopefully we're about to find out," he said, grabbing a crow bar and levering up the lid on the crate. The wood gave away with a loud groan, falling flat on all sides so that the lump of straw spilled out over the table. Something large and dirt-colored was visible here and there. He reached out to knock the straw clear when Sam grabbed for his arm.

"Wait," she said, something in her voice automatically making him comply. "Let's be careful with this until we know what it is."

Mal removed his hands, but refused to back away as Sam carefully began removing the straw while touching the thing as little as possible. When it was finally clear, she stepped back a moment, giving them all a clear view of the strange stone sculpture. It was about three feet wide and covered in characters Mal had never seen, set up with buttons like a rudimentary data station.

Sam finally reached out a hand and touched it like it was a holy thing or worse, a bomb. Vala and Jack stepped forward until all three of them were crowded around the thing.

"Is that what I think it is?" Jack asked.

Sam nodded.

"Ancient?" Vala asked.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed, her fingers still sliding along the contraption's edges.

Jack frowned, taking a deliberate step back that did nothing to calm Mal's nerves. "What is it doing here?"

Sam shook her head. "I have no idea."

"This can't be coincidence," Jack pointed out.

Mal had had enough. "What the hell are you people talking about?"

Jack looked up from the object just long enough to send Mal a sardonic glance. "Oh, it's safe to say you've bitten off way more than you can handle here, Reynolds."

Mal crossed his arms over his chest. "I think it's about time you told us who you really are."

"We're the ones who might actually be able to get you out of this mess," Jack said. "If you're lucky."

Mal was beginning to get back in the mood for yelling when Sam finally jumped in.

"You're right," she said. "We're not homesteaders."

"Oh, _really_."

Sam nodded. "We're also not exactly from around here."

"Where exactly _are_ you from?"

She took a breath. "A planet called Earth."

"You mean Earth that was?" Kaylee asked, confusion tingeing her voice.

Sam looked over at Jack and he shrugged. "No," she said. "Earth that _is_."

Kaylee's mouth dropped open.

"Earth ain't been habitable in centuries," Jayne pointed out.

"Our Earth is, last time I checked," Jack said.

"_Your_ Earth?"

"Look," Sam said, leaning over the table. "We don't know anything about the Earth from your mythology, whether it's the same one, or even what your civilization is doing here. We just know that we came from a neighboring galaxy where there is also an Earth."

"Oh," Jayne said, "didn't know there'd be bedtime stories. Let me go get my blankie."

Sam ignored him, pointing at the strange contraption. "This is an advanced piece of technology made by a race of beings we call the Ancients. A similar piece of technology built by them accidentally transported Vala and another one of our friends to your galaxy. We came here to find them."

Mal glanced at Vala just quick enough to see the look of surprise on her face, though he couldn't be sure if that was a reaction to Sam's honesty, or just being called friend. Catching him watching her, Vala's expression seamlessly morphed into something coy and practiced.

"You're talking about intergalactic travel," Kaylee said, tearing Mal's attention from Vala. "That would take lifetimes. Even moving between solar systems can take generations!"

Sam turned to Kaylee, her face softening and eyes lighting up with something that seemed to completely transform her face. "We had a ship equipped with a hyperdrive."

Kaylee plopped down into the seat next to Sam. "But that's—you can't," she sputtered, looking like she was getting a short circuit in her brain. She reached for Sam's arm, her eyes wide as they leaned into each other like girls sharing gossip. "How far did you come? How long did it take?"

Sam smiled. "From the edge of our galaxy to the edge of yours is about 4.2 million light-years. It took us four weeks to cross."

Kaylee's mouth gaped a moment before she sat up real straight. "Can I see it?"

"What?"

"Your ship!"

Jack let out a huff. "You'll have to ask the Alliance. They were kind enough to take it off our hands a while back."

"If they even still have it," Sam said. "I imagine our new friends could have found a way to get their hands on it."

"Hold on," Mal said, waving his hands in the air. "Are we really accepting that these three came from another _galaxy_?"

Kaylee shrugged one shoulder. "People have been hypothesizing 'bout hyperdrives for ages 'n ages. Never got it to work, but that don't mean it's impossible."

Sam turned back to Mal. "If you think we're lying, just ask River."

Mal didn't need to do that though, because despite the insanity of their story, things were finally beginning to make sense. A twisted, headachy sort of sense, but sense nonetheless.

"Say I believe you. What does any of this have to do with us?"

"Because this artifact tells me that the people holding our friend prisoner are the same ones you just stole from."

"They're gonna want their stuff back," Jack helpfully supplied, like Mal really needed the reminder that he'd just earned _Serenity_ yet another enemy.

"They know who you are, wouldn't you at least like to return the favor?" Sam asked.

Mal crossed his arms over his chest. "What are you suggesting?"

"That for the moment our interests lie in the same place."

Wonderful. And just when he'd grown so fond of the idea of dumping them off at the first backwater hellhole he could find.

"Help us rescue our friend, and in exchange we will help you figure out exactly what you've gotten yourselves into."

"And in exchange for risking my crew?"

Sam didn't seem to have a ready answer for that, apparently scrambling for something until her eyes came to rest on the alien device. She reached out and tapped it. "How about I teach you how to use this?"

Mal glanced down at the strange object. "That depends. What is it?"

Sam smiled. "Jack, would you mind?" she asked, canting her head towards the object.

He slid her a glance, a question there, but she just shrugged as if asking he if had a better idea. Reluctantly, Jack reached out and touched the device. Almost immediately the damn thing lit up, strange letters and shapes floating above it. Jayne jumped back from the table, Kaylee just staring up at it in awed fascination.

Mal's eyes darted to Sam's in alarm, but she was intently inspecting the device, poking at various buttons with her bottom lip between her teeth as if trying to remember an old school lesson.

"I think that should--," Sam started to say.

And then, to Mal's astonishment, Sam _and_ Jack disappeared. No poof or slight of hand, they were just _gone_, the machine still happily humming along.

"What the hell!" Jayne exclaimed, waving his rifle trough the space Sam had inhabited only moments before. "Where'd they go?"

Vala, for her part, didn't look so much alarmed as covetous, leaning in to take a much closer look at the contraption on the table.

A moment later, the machine turned off, Jack reappearing in his chair, only with Sam nowhere to be seen.

Someone tapped on Mal's shoulder, nearly making him jump out of his skin. He spun on his heel to find Sam standing behind him.

"So," she said, canting her head to one side. "Do we have a deal?"

Damn right they did.

* * *

Simon poked gently at the pink skin beginning to knit together under the dark stain of careful sutures across Jack's torso. All things considered, the wound was healing better than Simon could have hoped. Jack seemed to have bounced back from blood loss quicker than he would expect from a man half his age.

"You done yet, doc?" Jack demanded, his voice surly. Simon didn't take it personally; he'd seen enough people deal badly with being a patient to understand that it was the loss of control that ate at Jack, not the doctor per se.

"These sutures aren't quite ready to come out," Simon commented, carefully replacing the bandage with a fresh one. The surrounding skin was cool under his fingers, with no signs of blotchiness. "But I'm still not seeing any signs of infection, so that's good news."

Jack sighed. "They itch," he complained. "Can't you just take them out?"

"No, and neither can you," Simon said, his voice firm. Something told him Jack was exactly the sort of disgruntled patient to snip out his own stitches when no one was watching.

Movement outside the infirmary caught Simon's attention. Just River's eyes could be seen over the edge of the window, peering in on them as if a curious child at a zoo.

"Doc?" Jack asked, turning to look in the same direction as Simon.

River's head dropped out of sight.

"I think she's scared of you," Simon commented, keeping his voice low and even. People weren't River's specialty, especially strangers, but the way she'd been skulking around the ship since Jack and Sam appeared, something about it just struck Simon as strange, like she was half-fascinated and half-panicked. When he asked her about it, the most he could ever get out of her was that Jack "sounded different," whatever that meant.

It was easy to imagine something very dark festering in this man, his body spoke volumes about a rough life.

Jack met his gaze head on and Simon had the feeling his brotherly concern was pretty transparent. His tone, when he spoke, lacked all of the previous surliness, instead soft and earnest. "She doesn't have any reason to be." His lips twisted then, into a smile that managed to be wry and self-depreciating. "Though I can't vouch for what insanity might be hiding up in this old rock of mine."

Simon didn't get a chance to respond to that, as Mal and Sam came in then, mid-argument about something or other as usual.

Mal seemed to be chasing after Sam, his voice overly loud. "Metis ain't a place you just sidle up to and knock on the door!"

"I understand that," Sam said, the enormous stress she was under clear in her voice. Simon's practiced eye took in the various signals that she wasn't spending much time sleeping lately, let alone getting proper nutrition. "Vala knows the place, can direct us."

"Excuse me if I don't find that the comfort it should be. I usually find random strangers picked up from prison so _trustworthy_."

"Simon," Sam said, giving him a strained smile and pointedly turning her back on Mal as she came up to stand next to Jack. "How is our patient today?"

"He's fine," Jack insisted, sounding disgruntled. "And sitting right here."

Sam ignored that, turning to Simon for confirmation.

"Right, Doc?" Jack said, clearly willing Simon to be on his side.

Simon refused to get in the middle of that tug of war, taking a moment to finish off the bandage. Pulling off his gloves, he said, "Well, now that he's gone a few solid days without ripping his stitches out, we are on a much better road to recovery."

"See?" Jack said. "I'll be right as rain by the time we reach Metis."

"That's not what I-," Simon began to say, only to be interrupted by Mal.

"Best not to risk it," he said. "Jack's injury was serious after all. He'll be much safer onboard."

Mal and Sam stared across the bed at each other, and Simon didn't think he imagined the way the tension ratcheted up in the room. There was some sort of tug of war or silent battle of wills going on that Simon wasn't sure he understood the nuance of. Certainly this was more than Mal showing concern for Jack's health.

"Jack stays here," Mal reiterated in that 'don't mistake this for anything other than an order' tone of his that Simon knew only too well. It occurred to him then that keeping Jack on board was a ploy to make sure Sam stuck to plan, an insurance policy of sorts. No more surprises. Mal always did hate surprises.

The staring contest continued another beat. Sam was the first to look away.

"The hell I will," Jack snapped, probably understandably annoyed at being discussed like he was a piece of meat. He yanked his shirt down and hopped off the bed without any regard for his wound and Simon tried not to wince at the careless movement. On the road to healing was not the same thing as _healed_.

"Jack," Sam said, one hand lifting to her forehead like she was suffering sinus pressure.

"If you think I am letting you go out on a job alone with these people _again_…"

And that was it. Simon could practically see her temper snapping. "Excuse us," she said, pulling Jack's arm hard enough that he had no option other than to follow her out of the room.

Simon glanced at Mal, but he just shrugged and unabashedly strolled up to lean against the doorframe to get a better view of the unfolding drama.

Sam had pulled Jack as far away from the infirmary as they could get. With their heads now close together, Sam was speaking insistently, only to have Jack bark something that made her wince, her back straightening as if coming to a reluctant sort of attention. Recovering, she shook her head, emphasizing whatever she was saying with a swift jab of her finger to Jack's chest.

All of which only served to make Jack even more than irate, and Simon tensed for some sort of epic explosion of temper. There was an explosion all right, just not exactly the sort he was expecting.

Jack reached for her, dragging her up against him, and Simon took a step as if to intervene but rather than shaking some sense into her, or harming her in any way, Jack simply kissed her. Not that it was a simple kiss by any means, but a hard one as if he was imprinting her in his mind.

Just when Simon was beginning to think it was long past time to stop spying, Jack broke the kiss. With his head still resting against hers, he lifted one hand to her cheek as he said something so softly that not even the tiniest rumble of sound made it to where Simon and Mal stood.

Sam's body seemed to bow into his as she touched his hand on her cheek, her fingers squeezing around his as she nodded firmly, like making a pledge.

Still looking grim, but appeased, Jack pulled his hand back and stepped around her, disappearing back into the guest quarters. Sam stood there a moment longer against the wall, like she'd had all the wind taken out of her sails, one hand pressed to her lips.

Then she turned and saw Mal and Simon watching her, her expression shifting to hard and guarded once more. Simon felt his cheeks burn with guilt for intruding on something that was obviously private. Then again, in a place like _Serenity_, there wasn't much privacy to be found. For anyone.

Sam approached, coming to a stop next to Mal. "He stays," she confirmed.

Mal nodded. "Then I'd say we've got ourselves a deal." With that, he pushed off the doorjamb and headed back up towards the bridge.

Sam watched him go, her hand once again massaging at her forehead.

"Headache?" Simon asked, ushering her back into the infirmary. "The Captain tends to have that effect on people."

Sam let out a soft huff of amusement. "I bet."

Simon pulled open a cabinet. "Let me give you something for the headache."

"No, it's fine."

"Maybe something to help you sleep?"

She looked up at him in surprise, as if wondering how he could know she wasn't sleeping.

Simon gestured at himself. "Doctor, remember?"

She gave him a brittle smile. "I can't afford any weird side effects right now," she said. "We still have no idea how much our physiology differs from your own."

Simon conceded the point, not particularly interested in having someone else try to kill him in a drugged fit. Something told him Sam could be just as dangerous as Jack when she needed to be, even if it was hard to imagine looking at her now.

"You're going to have a hard time looking out for everyone if you don't take care of yourself," Simon observed.

"Thanks for the concern, Simon," she said in a way he knew meant she had no intention of taking his advice. She gestured over her shoulder. "I've got a lot of work to do before we reach Metis."

"Of course," Simon said.

River appeared in the doorway then, her eyes following Sam as she departed. "She don't know how to bend."

Simon nodded. "Maybe she should learn."

River's head tilted to the side, her hand slipping into his. "She will. Everyone does."

That was what he was afraid of.


	6. Dr Jackson, I Presume

**Dr. Jackson, I Presume**

Metis was by far the nicest prison Daniel had ever been kept in.

The villa was rich, with fine sweeping views of lawns and fountains and winding garden paths. It was also simple though, almost to the point of monasticism if it weren't for the obviously fine quality of everything—wealth and power embodied by the rich austerity. Of course it was still a prison, gilded or not, and he was fairly certain his comfortable treatment stemmed entirely from what they perceived as his usefulness.

His captors preferred to treat him as a guest, a colleague, even going so far as to including him in social events. The dinners were a weekly event, a ruse probably meant to make Daniel feel more connected to his hosts, as if a nice three-course meal in a beautiful room might cover up the fact that he was their prisoner. Manners seemed to be of utmost import to his hosts though, all the niceties observed.

In the months he'd been here, Daniel couldn't recall a single time someone's voice had risen above a moderated hush, unless it had been his own.

"How does your work progress, Dr. Jackson?"

Daniel looked up at Quincy, seated at the head of the table. He was the uncontested leader of the compound. All the other residents here treated him with near God-like reverence. Tonight he was dressed in simple black of the finest quality, his short silver hair standing out boldly in contrast. He was a small man of indeterminate age who spoke softly, never raising his voice. It seemed a measure of his complete control and Daniel long ago noticed the way it required those near him to lean in closer to hear him, a manipulation that seamlessly reasserted his power.

Control was important to Quincy.

"Excuse me?" Daniel asked, even though he heard the soft words perfectly well. It was a game they often played, Daniel tossing Quincy's attempted manipulations back in his face.

On Daniel's right, Cyrus, a younger devotee who was still wide-eyed and jumpy in the illustrious company of the weekly dinner, turned to Daniel and hissed in his ear, "He asked how your work progresses, Dr. Jackson!"

Daniel hid a smile, taking a perverse sort of pleasure in bringing any ripple to Quincy's table, no matter how minor. The pleasure didn't last though, as Daniel was more than aware that this foolish play was just a way to distract himself from his complete helplessness.

Not that it kept him from trying.

Turning to Quincy, Daniel countered the standard question with an overly loud question of his own, causing those near him to flinch. "When will Vala return?"

While ostensibly Daniel was cooperating with Quincy's demands, helping them translate some documents as slowly as was humanly possible, mostly as a way to garner any useful information that Daniel carefully kept to himself, he was not above reminding Quincy that he was a prisoner despite any attempts at pretense. It was hard to ignore the locked doors, the subtle threats, and most blatant of all, the sudden and unexplained disappearance of Vala. She was his one ally in this damned galaxy, his one connection to his old life, a presence he had come to depend upon long before she was gone without a word.

It wasn't just guilt that tied him to Vala. It didn't seem to matter anymore whether this was all his fault because he was stupid enough to insist on using the Ancient device, or if it was really her manipulation and use of the damn bracelets on him that had been the thing to strand her here. He wasn't going to give up on her, mostly because he knew she expected him to. She never expected anyone to stick and it pissed him off for some reason he didn't like to spend too much time thinking about.

Quincy shook his head, his displeasure at Daniel's continued stubbornness carefully hidden. "Put her from your mind, son. As we have told you ample times, she is well and enjoying her time on Shanton Shores."

Daniel wondered if they really expected him to buy that, like Vala had simply requested a change in scenery and they'd granted her this wish.

Pushing back his untouched plate, Daniel got to his feet. "I'd like to return to my cell now, if that is permissible."

This time Quincy couldn't quite hide his flinch at Daniel's uncouth words, waving him away with one imperious flick of his hand.

Daniel smirked. One point to Dr. Jackson.

As if it really meant anything.

* * *

Daniel stepped into what he'd begun to think of as his cell, hearing the door lock carefully behind him. The room was swathed in shadows, only a few shafts of moonlight filtering in through the unbreakable windows that offered a view down to the lake. Not bothering to turn on a light, Daniel moved across the room to the large desk the dominated one side of the room. Two of the walls were covered floor to ceiling with bookshelves, a table nearby covered in folios of pages to be translated.

Daniel flicked on the small lamp on his desk and looked down at the messy, garbled translation that had been completed by someone long before Daniel came along. It was almost funny, how far off it was, and Daniel had to curb the instinct to fly through it, scratching out clunky phrasing that showed no understanding or respect for the Ancient language.

The last thing he actually wanted to do was help these bastards. He wondered how much longer it would take them to realize he was leading them on a merry chase. How long until he disappeared like Vala.

Pulling out his own journal, he painstakingly copied untranslated passages of Ancient text into it. Any that showed any promise of helping him understand this crazy galaxy. It was purely an intellectual exercise, something to distract him while he waited for the next thing to happen.

Most days he couldn't be sure what he was waiting for.

Long hours later, Daniel shut the light off. The party would have died out long ago. They believed strongly in moderation after all and a solid eight hours of sleep was viewed as practically sacred here. Strength of the body, strength of the mind. Daniel felt like he'd been dropped in the middle of an insane cult.

With a sigh, Daniel crossed back over to the small bedchamber, collapsing back onto his bed.

And looked right up into the face of Vala, who was half hanging out of an open panel in the ceiling.

His first thought was that he had to be losing his mind. His second was to wonder if she'd been hiding in the vents all this time.

"Hi, Daniel," she said as if it hadn't been six months since they'd seen each other. "Are you done playing twenty questions with these creeps yet? 'Cause I found us a ride."

Daniel followed her glance towards the camera in the top corner of his room. The little red blinking light was no longer lit. Before Daniel could ask what the hell was going on, Vala gracefully folded out of the vent, landing smoothly on his bed, one foot on each side of his hips.

She bent her knees, bouncing the bed a little, throwing him a saucy look. "As much as I'd love to test out your bed, Daniel, we are on a bit of a timeline."

With that, she hopped down and crossed over to the door, glancing at her watch. As if on cue, the door popped open, the lock releasing.

"Ready?" she asked.

Daniel scrambled to his feet, finally managing to find his voice. "What the hell is going on?"

"No time to explain, darling." With that, Vala disappeared out the door.

Daniel swore, grabbing his notebooks from the desk and tossing them into a knapsack before peering out the doorway. The hall seemed empty and a quick glance at the ceiling confirmed that the cameras in this section were all also disabled.

"Vala," Daniel hissed once he caught up with her, but she just shoved him hard around a corner and into a small alcove.

"We _cannot_ be seen, Daniel," she said, leaning into him. "Just do exactly what I tell you and we will get out of this damn place. Do you understand?"

This was not a side of Vala he had ever seen before—deadly serious and, if he didn't know any better, almost a little scared.

"Where did they take you?" Daniel asked, his eyes traveling over her face. She seemed thinner, almost translucent and he felt his anger at these self-righteous bastards rising once again.

She stared back at him, her face paling.

"Vala," a hushed voice called out, a tall woman with a large shotgun rounding the corner. She looked them both over. "Is this Jackson?"

"Yes, Zoe," Vala said and by the time she looked back at him, her face was once more flippant and apathetic. "Time to go," she said like some peppy flight attendant.

The other woman, Zoe as Vala had called her, nodded and spoke softly into a small radio. "We've got Jackson, sir. We are on our way back to the shuttle."

"Okay," a man's voice answered. "We'll finish up here and meet you there in ten."

"Understood, sir," Zoe said, letting go of the radio and ushering them both out into the hall.

Vala strode forward, pointing down the next turn. "Our exit is this way."

Daniel silently followed after Vala, the other woman falling in behind him. Sure enough, a short while later they reached one of the sitting rooms with large French doors that opened out into the garden. Usually locked at night, these too were now sitting slightly ajar.

Apparently Vala's new friends knew what they were doing.

They sprinted across the lawn under the cover of darkness. Daniel had just made out the bulky shadow of a shuttle behind the maintenance building when Zoe's radio rattled back into life.

"Son of a bitch," the man's voice exclaimed. Behind them, Daniel could see lights turning on all over the compound. "We've been made. Get the hell out of here while you can!"

There was the sound of weapons fire and a voice swearing harshly and then silence.

Zoe paused on the edge of the path, her body tensing for a moment as if considering running to aid the man on the radio.

"Zoe!" a man's voice hissed from near the shuttle. Daniel saw a well-armed man appear, waving them over.

Zoe muttered something under her breath, glancing at Daniel and Vala and squaring her shoulders. "Come on," she said, her voice brisk. "We have to get out of here now."

"But what about-," Vala started to say.

"Move," Zoe demanded, grabbing her arm. "There's no time."

They clambered into the shuttle, lifting off as soon as Zoe slipped in behind the controls.

Whether by luck or by plan, the shuttle managed to make a clean getaway, whizzing up into the atmosphere where a transport ship of some kind waited for them. Vala was quiet on the ride and Daniel followed her lead, spending his time wondering how she'd managed to arrange this rescue and what exactly had gone wrong back on the planet.

Docking to the waiting ship with a graceless thump, Zoe scrambled out of the shuttle without another word.

"Come on," Vala said, following after her.

Daniel didn't have much time to look around his strange new surroundings. Soon enough they entered a small room crowded with people. The moment he turned the corner, someone grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Daniel."

He looked up to see a face he has begun to think he would never see again. "Jack," he exclaimed, grinning back at him. "What—how?" he sputtered as a million half-formed questions rose in his mind. He glanced around the room in hopes for a few more familiar faces.

Jack just grinned back at him, his hands tight almost to the point of discomfort on his arms. Daniel didn't particularly mind.

"More than enough time for your questions later," Jack said, reaching up to ruffle Daniel's hair.

Daniel good-naturedly rolled his eyes at the juvenile gesture, mumbling, "It's so _good_ to be home." Jack's high spirits were contagious and Daniel was more than happy to play his part.

Only then a young woman next to them said in a slightly tremulous voice, "Where's the Cap'n?" and Jack's entire demeanor shifted in a moment. He looked past Daniel's shoulder as if expecting more people.

"Where the hell is Sam?" he demanded.

Daniel felt his stomach drop. Sam?

"They didn't make it back to the rendezvous point," Zoe said, her voice calm and seemingly uncaring. She turned to a small girl by her side. "River, get us out of atmo real quick."

Jack stepped across the girl's path, causing her to stumble to a stop. "The hell we are!"

Zoe didn't even blink, just pulled her weapon on Jack. "You will stand down, or I will put you down." Daniel had no inkling she was bluffing.

Vala was looking back and forth between them as if trying to decide where the winning side would be, but the other man from the shuttle, a gun hand from the looks of it, seemed to decide it, standing behind Zoe with his own weapon pulled.

Jack stepped up into Zoe's gun, letting it press into his chest. "He's your Captain," he hissed.

"And I have my orders," she bit out. When Jack didn't move away, she cocked the gun, giving Jack a look that fairly screamed 'Try me'. They stared at each other a moment, frozen there, a wordless power struggle. Daniel knew the chances of Jack standing down were nonexistent at best.

Zoe finally seemed to get that as well, because she said, "The longer we keep sitting here, the more likely we all end up in that cell. And that don't do either of them any good."

That finally seemed to penetrate Jack's rage, as he swore harshly under his breath and stepped back.

"River. Go," Zoe said, dropping her shotgun back to her shoulder.

"Do you have any idea what they are going to do to them?" Jack asked, his voice gruff.

Zoe's lips pressed together. "We _are_ going back. When _I_ say we do. Do we understand each other?"

Jack didn't answer, just slumped back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

Zoe seemed appeased, but still cautious. "Jayne, watch them," she ordered before disappearing after the girl.

Once Zoe disappeared up the stairs, Jack strode over to them, taking Vala aside, having a brief but intense conversation with her that neither seemed to enjoy. Jack came back looking decidedly grim and Daniel made the connection—Jack wanted to know exactly what Sam might be going through, wanted to know what they had done to Vala.

"They never hurt me," Daniel said, trying to battle his own fear at Sam being down there with his meticulous, but bizarrely sinister captors.

"Then you were lucky," Jack said.

Daniel didn't like what that implied, his eyes finding Vala again.

Rather than joining them, Vala had crossed the room to stand near Jayne, any distaste for the memories she just had to relive hidden under a seductive grin that Jayne was more than receptive to. It earned them some privacy, but that didn't stop the inexplicable burning in his gut.

"Jack," Daniel said, turning back to him. "What is going on?"

Jack eased himself down onto a couch with a wince and Daniel felt another beat of worry. Jack looked up at him. "I don't have time for storytelling, Daniel. Right now I need you to tell me everything you can about the people who had you."

God, where even to begin?

"Are they Alliance?" Jack asked.

Daniel didn't have time to linger over the fact that Jack seemed rather well versed in this galaxy. "Yes and no."

"Daniel," he said, loading the word with the infamous Jack O'Neill impatience.

Daniel sat down next to him. "They call themselves the Illuminati."

"How original," Jack quipped.

Daniel gave him a wry grin. "From what I can tell they seem to be a subset of the Alliance ranks, a secret society of sorts but pushing their own agenda, setting up their own strongholds within the structure of the Alliance itself."

Jack nodded, as if this lined up with what he'd come to suspect. "Great. Do I even want to ask what their agenda is?"

"Well, they are completely obsessed with Ancient culture and technology."

"Yeah, we picked up on that," Jack said. "We just weren't sure why or how."

Daniel pushed back to his feet, suddenly feeling way too jittery to stay put. "They have a collection of artifacts they've found strewn throughout the solar system, apparently first found when they immigrated here after depleting their own home planet. As far as I can tell, when the crews started terraforming, they stumbled upon small caches of objects unlike anything they had ever seen. A group was formed who dedicated their lives to researching them. They're almost religious in their zeal, their total dedication to the pursuit of learning."

It was disturbing on so many levels for him, to see something held so dear to his own heart twisted into greed and maliciousness.

"Have you figured out what Ancient technology is doing in this galaxy in the first place?"

Daniel ran a hand through his hair. "They set me to work on translating their archive of texts, but honestly, most of it was technical stuff, or run of the mill logs of a single person."

"An Ancient?" Jack guessed.

Daniel nodded. "As far as I can tell, this galaxy was purposively seeded by an Ancient centuries ago, most likely with people from Earth."

"Then how are they so advanced? How is it that as far as they are concerned it's the year 2519?"

"I don't know. From the logs, I think she was studying them. Not working to enlighten them, but using them like guinea pigs, studying their habits and interactions like a sociologist. Maybe she accelerated it somehow. Maybe she influenced their growth. I don't know. It's probably why she chose this galaxy though."

"Because out here, the other Ancients couldn't interfere."

"Right," Daniel said. "From what I can tell though, it's been a long while since she was actively involved. I don't know if she got bored and left or just ascended and is still around somewhere, but one thing _is_ clear: there is no natural instance of the Ancient gene in this population."

For the first time, Jack looked surprised. "So, what, they have all the stuff, but can't use any of it?"

"Pretty much," Daniel said.

"She didn't want anyone playing with her toys after she left," Jack surmised.

"It's possible. But either way, the Illuminati have begun to suspect it's something physiological that they're missing."

"And that's what they are so dead set on finding."

"Yeah. They tested both Vala and me rather extensively when we first arrived, but we don't have what they need."

"Son of a bitch," Jack swore. "When these guys suddenly changed their tune, stuffed Vala in a far off prison, when exactly was that?"

"About six and a half months ago."

"Six and a half months…" Jack repeated, his eyes closing.

"What?"

"That's when Sam and I were picked up by the Alliance."

Daniel didn't quite see the connection. "So?"

"In a puddle jumper."

Realization dawned. "They found you in possession of a working Ancient ship," Daniel said, finally seeing the pieces dropping into place.

Jack nodded. "It explains the one thousand credit bounty on our heads and the fact that we've been chased back and forth across this solar system ever since we got here. These Illuminati guys want to study us."

Daniel's brow furrowed. "But, wait. Wouldn't they already have what they need then? Didn't the Alliance do any medical tests on you when they captured you?"

Jack shook his head. "They didn't get the chance. Sam and I ducked out the first chance we saw and never looked back. We've been on the run ever since."

Daniel turned and looked over at Vala. "And then you pulled Vala out of their jail," he mused. "And they knew that you would be coming after me too."

"Shit," Jack swore, pushing to his feet and pacing the short distance to the door. "They were waiting for us." He kicked at the wall, a surprising burst of temper, both Vala and Jayne looking over in alarm. "I never should have let her go down there alone. What the hell was I thinking?"

"Jack," Daniel said. "The last thing we need is for you, of all people, to be captured by the Illuminati."

"Why is that?"

"Because you're the only person in this entire galaxy with the Ancient gene, the one thing they need more than anything."

Jack turned to him, the same belligerent aggression in his stance he'd been using on Zoe, enough that Daniel wondered when this became his base state. "If you think that means I'm not going back there to get Sam…"

Daniel wasn't stupid enough to suggest it. Besides, if anyone could pull this off, it was Jack. "Of course not," he said. "We'll just…make sure you aren't captured."

Jack looked at him a moment, that far too familiar O'Neill kamikaze gleam in his eye before he shook his head. "That is if Zoe doesn't decide to keep us locked up just out of spite," he said, glaring in Jayne's direction.

Daniel laughed. "Since when did we let that stop us?"

Jack's eyes swiveled back to Daniel, staring at him like he'd said something completely unexpected.

"What?" Daniel asked.

Jack reached out and touched his arm. "I'm sorry it took so long for us to get here."

Daniel shook his head. "Honestly, I'm surprised they even let you come."

Jack's attention shifted as if he suddenly found the wall next to him incredibly interesting. Daniel knew evasion when he saw it. "Jack?"

Jack scraped at something on the wall with his thumb. "I wouldn't exactly say they _let_ us."

Daniel did not like the sound of that. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Let's just say this wasn't an officially sanctioned rescue mission. We had an idea where you were, roughly, but… Well, the damn IOA has been cutting back funding at the SGC and shunting it into Atlantis ever since Anubis got his final comeuppance. They weren't going to let us risk resources to come after you in what was sure to be a wild goose chase."

That was exactly what Daniel had begun to fear as more and more time passed, that he and Vala had been written off. "But then how…"

Jack grimaced. "Sam and I stole the puddle jumper, and we got a lot of help from Thor."

"You _stole_ it?" Daniel asked, feeling his stomach drop off at the thought of how far they'd had to go for him.

Jack shrugged. "We knew what we were doing, understood that this could be a one way trip. We accepted that."

"But your careers… They could throw you in jail!"

Jack smirked. "Since when did we let that stop us?"

Daniel blinked up at him, a little surprised to have his own words tossed back at him, but mostly just reassured. It had been a year since they'd seen each other, and even longer since SG-1 was together in any official sense, but standing there with Jack, none of that seemed to matter. He and Sam had traveled millions of light-years, tracking him down like the proverbial needle in a hostile haystack, damn the consequences. Getting Sam back should be trivial in comparison. And they _would_ get her back.

Daniel glanced from Jack to Vala who was now staring at them both like they were quite possibly insane. She might be right.

Daniel looked up at Jack—saw the same unmovable determination mirrored in his expression.

They'd never let the odds stop them before, and they weren't going to start now.

* * *

"What are we going to do?" Kaylee asked, looking around at everyone.

Things had gone from strange to awful real quick after the second job, the one on Metis. Zoe'd had to make the decision to keep _Serenity_ safe at the cost of the Captain and Kaylee knew that couldn't have been easy, not when they couldn't afford to lose any more. _Serenity_ was empty enough these days without losing the Captain.

Zoe was on her feet, standing at the head of the table and managing to look amazingly calm despite the fact that they'd just lost two of their numbers. Mostly Kaylee wanted to panic, her fingers twisting in her overalls. Next to her, she could feel Simon shift in his seat, his hand brushing her arm, and she tried to find comfort in the gesture.

"We rescue the Captain," Zoe said like it was a forgone conclusion.

"How exactly do you reckon we do that?" Jayne demanded. He was watching on from the door to the mess, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest as if trying to project 'I told ya so,' as loud as possible.

Zoe's lips pressed together, her body making a little twitch of movement as if she dearly wanted to pace but wouldn't allow herself the weakness.

"Don't you think Jack and his friends will help?" Simon asked, making them all very aware once again of who was missing from this particular conversation. Zoe had ordered them locked back up while they brainstormed. Zoe had never trusted them from the onset, and from the way things turned out, Kaylee figured she couldn't blame her none for that.

Zoe sidestepped the question, jutting her chin towards the contraption from Shanxi. "Can you make that work, Kaylee?"

Kaylee felt her heart slam in her chest, her eyes widening a bit. "I still ain't even sure _what_ it is," she said, an edge of panic slipping into her voice. "Without Sam…" She shook her head. They'd have to find another way. She just hoped Zoe saw one, 'cause she sure didn't.

"Jayne?" Zoe asked. "Any ideas?"

He shrugged. "We went in to get one, came back minus two. I say we cut 'n run while we're ahead."

"Something tells me Jack will have a problem with that," Simon noted.

"Easy way to fix that. We turn in the ones we still got for the reward. Or, hell, if you insist on it, maybe they'll trade us Mal for them other three."

Kaylee looked over at Zoe, trying to see if she was really considering doing that, dumping their new friends. Were they really that desperate? Reaching for the alien device, Kaylee pulled it closer to her. "Maybe if I spend a bit more time with it?" she offered, grasping for any other solution.

Zoe looked over her, her face softening for a moment as if she knew exactly what Kaylee was thinking. "It's okay, Kaylee. We'll find another way."

Zoe hesitated then, before turning and addressing the last person in the room. "River?" she asked.

River 'n the Captain had always seemed to get each other. More than even Simon, 'cause for all his closeness, Simon still saw that little girl when he looked at her, when all Kaylee could see sometimes was the fierce thing washed in blood. The Captain was the one who seemed to really see River, not as a machine, or a girl, or a victim, or a freak and even though Zoe didn't often see it herself, she got that River mattered. The Captain trusted River, and today that must have been enough for Zoe.

River simply put out a hand to _Serenity's_ hull, the hum of the machine seeming to shift in pitch to Kaylee's well-tuned ears. "Too many empty spaces," River said, her eyes staring up at the ceiling. "She doesn't like it."

Kaylee heard Zoe make a soft sound of frustration and then River's eyes swung straight to her, meeting Zoe's gaze steadily. "Ask the new one. The scholar. Let them help."

With that, River turned and slipped out of the room, back up towards the bridge. She practically lived there since they lost Wash. Kaylee felt her heart squeeze something painful. She didn't particularly like the empty spaces either.

She slipped her hand into Simon's.

"Did I mention the reward on them is one thousand credits?" Jayne asked in the following silence, his voice hopeful.

"Bring them up," Zoe said, sounding resigned. "And hope they have some ideas."

Kaylee breathed out in relief, her fingers tightening around Simon's. It was going to be okay.

It had to be.

* * *

Cracking the encryption on the files Sam took from Shanxi was fairly quick once they had Daniel to translate and River to work her mathematical genius. As far as Jack could tell though, Daniel wasn't finding anything of particular help in those files. In fact, Jack was fairly certain he was rapidly approaching frustration meltdown.

As if on cue, Daniel threw his arms up, pushing back from the console. "This is pointless," he complained. "All that's on here are manifests and inventory lists and a mind-numbingly large backlog of academic papers that are so misguided they aren't even funny."

This was not at all what Jack wanted to hear, because those files were all they had, the hopes of both groups tied to them. He was about to launch into pep talk mode, anything to get Daniel working again, pulling that twelfth hour miracle out of his ass, but Daniel shoved to his feet, and Jack had to rethink his assessment of Daniel's frustration level.

Daniel paced out into the hold, like the small common room was beginning to choke him. Jack followed him out. The room was empty other than River, who sat on the edge of a large packing crate, her bare feet swinging back and forth like a child.

"Daniel," Jack said. "That's the only lead we have." Like either of them needed the reminder.

"Well, then we need to find another," Daniel said as if the paths in front of them were plentiful.

Jack's jaw tightened and he fought to keep his voice even. "And how exactly do you suggest we do that?"

"I don't know!"

Daniel seemed to regret his outburst the moment he let the words out, but Jack just shook his head, pacing his own path down the hold. He understood. He was fairly close to charging his way back into that complex without a plan at all at this point. Pure nerve and stupidity had served him well in the past after all.

He just sure as hell wasn't going to wait another six months to find a viable plan. Not when he saw the way Daniel's eyes followed Vala, concern clear on his face, like he was finally beginning to understand just what the Illuminati were capable of.

Jack ruthlessly cut that train of thought off, because he was perilously close to thinking about Sam being in the hands of these nut jobs and his brain just shut down then in a pulse of rage and he needed to think straight. Needed to have at least some semblance of clear thinking.

Movement at the other end of the hold caught Jack's attention. He'd almost forgotten River was in here with them. She had pushed to her feet, now standing on top of the crate like a heron, her arms held out beside her. He watched her walk along the top of the crates like a ballerina in slow motion, her skirt swirling around her legs. Reaching the end of the row, she paused over the last open crate, bending nearly in half at the waist to peer down into it. She cocked her head to the side.

"I can hear it," she said, closing her eyes as if listening to music the rest of them couldn't hear. "I just can't understand it."

Jack had explained to Daniel all about the girl and her special abilities. Daniel had taken it in stride, all things considered. Maybe he'd noticed the way the crew listened to her when she spoke, no matter how nonsensical it seemed, because Daniel didn't hesitate to walk over to stand next to her.

He glanced down into the open crate, his mouth falling open with surprise. "Where did this come from?"

Jack stepped up next to him, looking down to see the Ancient device. He'd almost forgotten about it in the chaos after Metis. "Mal's crew nabbed that out of Shanxi, back when we found Vala."

"Don't you know what this is?" Daniel asked, getting that super excited this-could-be-life-altering tone of his. Meaning Daniel didn't bother waiting for an answer from Jack. "There was one in the Glastonbury cave. I sent it with translations to Area 52 with a bunch of other Ancient artifacts."

"Yeah," Jack said, none of this new to him. "It's a phase-whatsis. Sam already demonstrated it for Mal."

Daniel blinked back at him. "Jack. This is it. This is what we need to save Sam."

Jack felt his adrenaline spike like a punch to the stomach at those words, but forced himself to be still, to be cautious. He squinted down at the object. "As I understood it, you can't interact with anything in the real world when you're out of phase."

"Right," Daniel said, nodding along in lesson mode, his voice slow and careful like he was hiding the punch line. "You can only manipulate the controls on the machine. It exists concurrently in both realities at once."

"So you can turn it on and off," Jack said.

Daniel stared at him as if he was missing something obvious. He jerkily gestured at the device, hands and arms akimbo. "There's—there's another one on Metis! I saw it myself."

Jack crossed his arms, but didn't say anything, waiting for Daniel to spin the rest of this out.

Daniel didn't seem to notice, just pacing away from the box. "All we need is a way to get us on that planet. We can walk right in through the walls, find the other machine, grab Sam, and walk right back out."

"Simple," Jack said. Simple was rarely trustworthy, he reminded himself. "What about weapons?"

"Theoretically anything we have on our person when we shift out of phase should stay with us."

Jack wasn't sure there was another word he hated more than 'theoretically'. "And getting back out?" he asked, poking for holes and desperately hoping not to find any. "Do we just get out of phase again and walk out?"

Daniel was looking towards the device again, his eyes slipping out of focus. "I think I might know an even better way," he said, his voice slow and thoughtful. Then he turned on his heel and rushed back into the common room.

Jack knew that particular tone. It meant he was better off not asking until Daniel had a chance to work it all out in his mind. He'd be back to talking Jack's ear off when this latest lead materialized. But until then…

Jack walked over to the box, reaching in to touch the smooth stone surface of the device. It hummed to life under his fingers, the familiar reverberation of recognition and power surging up his arm and for once he wasn't suspicious of this strange connection he had with this alien technology, only grateful.

They had a plan.

Above him, the crate creaked as River moved, dropping into a cross-legged sitting position, her fingers stretching out to touch the floating display of text. She smiled as her fingers passed through without touching, snatching again at the colors like a cat chasing a sunbeam, and he's surprised by the joy on her face at such a simple, childish game.

"Thanks," Jack said, his voice quiet so as not to scare her.

She jerked as if she'd forgotten he was there, her hand frozen mid-grab in the lights.

"_Xie xie_," he tried again, purposely mangling the pronunciation.

River's lips twitched then, one hand flying to cover her mouth, but he could see the sparkle of amusement in her eyes. "_Bu ke qi_," she said through her fingers, almost perfectly matching his awful pronunciation like they were playing some game no one else knew the rules to.

Jack smiled.

* * *

Zoe looked up from her untouched meal when Jack came rushing up the stairs. Across from her, she heard Simon make a sound of frustration, no doubt at Jack's continued inability to simply convalesce like a sane person.

"Daniel figured out how to get them back," Jack announced.

"How?" Zoe asked, refusing to get swept up in the excitement he was exuding.

"All we need is a way to get back on Metis," he said. "Happen to have any friends in high places?"

Kaylee perked up immediately, staring at Zoe with bright eyes. "You mean like someone who might have legitimate business in that part of the system without raising suspicion?"

Jack's attention swiveled to Kaylee. "Is that a yes?"

Kaylee nodded. "Yup."

Jack gave her a feral sort of grin that was bizarrely comforting in a completely terrifying way. "Then give them a call. And let's go get our people back."

Zoe glanced over at Kaylee. "The Captain's gonna _love_ this."

Kaylee laughed, jumping out of her chair and giving Zoe a squeeze. "I'll go send 'Nara a wave!" she said, disappeared out the door.

Zoe and Jack regarded each other over the table, and without Kaylee's eager optimism the mood in the room cooled considerably.

"I'm not sending you and Dr. Jackson down there alone," Zoe said.

Jack's posture shifted, his body relaxed, but his eyes telling a different story. "Is that concern for our safety? I'm touched."

Zoe imagined his strange mix of acerbic wit and downplay of his intelligence might throw most people for a loop when dealing with him. She wasn't fooled. "No. More that I don't trust you to have the Captain's best interests at heart."

Jack regarded her for a long moment, and she refused to react to his scrutiny. Eventually, he sat down across from her. "What are you going to do, come yourself?" he asked. "There are a hell of a lot of people out there looking for _Serenity_ right now. Are you going to leave Jayne in charge?"

There was something of the man that'd grasped Simon by the throat visible in him now, but also competence and tightly wound control, and Zoe got the feeling then that was talking to a fellow soldier. A comrade.

"Or I could send Jayne with you," she said. It was the same tangled game of variables she'd been shifting through in her mind since the moment the Captain was taken. Speaking them out loud with Jack was not something she would have expected to find useful.

Jack smiled. "Because the one thousand credit bounty on our heads is in no way a temptation."

Zoe grimaced. "There is that."

"That leaves you with River and Simon. Maybe little Kaylee?"

None of whom Zoe could send down on the mission, or trust to keep _Serenity_ safe if they were discovered while she was away.

"Look, you don't have a lot of choices here, and I know how much that sucks," Jack said, giving her a look that made her think he understood exactly what she was struggling with. "But you do have one more option."

"What's that?"

"To trust me when I give you my word that I will bring them both back."

As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. She didn't have a whole lot of options, each one more unpalatable than the last. But he was her Captain and leaving him behind was one option she refused to entertain.

She nodded at Jack. "You'll leave Vala here."

There were currently only two people with knowledge of Metis and the Illuminati on board. If Jack and Dr. Jackson failed, she'd need that other source of information to make even a dream of another rescue possible.

Jack seemed to get that. "Deal."

He stuck out his hand and Zoe took it, a firm shake that was as straightforward and unyielding as the man sitting across from her. It was true that Jack had mostly been an ailing patient overshadowed by Sam's bluster since he got on board, and it was only now, as Zoe stared across the table at him that she realized she might have misjudged him.

"Deal," she echoed.

He pushed up from the table. "I'll go tell Daniel."

She nodded, looking down at her now cold meal and hoping this feeling that she'd made the right choice wasn't just wishful thinking.

"Hey, Zoe?"

She looked up to find Jack regarding her from the doorway.

"I don't know if you'll find it a comfort or not, but this insane, all-odds-stacked-against-us kind of mission…it's sort of our specialty back home."

Zoe nodded, giving him a wry smile. "You're right. That's not particularly comforting."

Jack laughed.

* * *

Inara watched Jayne and the stranger load a large stone console onto her shuttle, carefully covering it with one of her silk hangings. They'd explained to her what it was a few times now, but that didn't make it sound any less like a fairytale—distant aliens and magic artifacts.

Leaving them to it, Inara turned her attention to the shuttle itself and her part in the charade they were building. She'd had enough belongings left on _Serenity_ to do a credible job of decorating the shuttle again. To her sharp eye, the discrepancies were obvious, but minutiae was her specialty and she knew most people never looked much closer once they thought they knew what they were seeing. A failing of the human spirit in most cases, but today she would take it as the boon it was.

"Good thing we still had so many of your things," Kaylee commented as she passed by with another box, sliding her a knowing glance. Then again, Inara thought, some people still see too much.

"Thank you for doing this," Zoe said, stepping up next to her.

"Of course, Zoe," Inara said, surprised by her obvious gratitude, if not the new sort of distance the woman projected around herself. _Serenity_ was Inara's family too, their wounds hers, no matter her reasons for not staying.

"I hate to risk getting you into more trouble, drag you back in. Especially since these people seem a bit more…relentless than most."

Inara nodded. "I've heard whispers of the Illuminati over the years, most of them more like storybook tales than fact." Or boogeyman stories. It was amazing what men would say to a woman to impress her, the secrets they would spill in a moment of surrender.

Inara knew well that something was churning in the Alliance ranks, something beyond even the catastrophic reverberations of Miranda. The Alliance was pulling itself apart from the inside—conspiracies and paranoia. The most surprising part of all of this should be that _Serenity_ managed to find herself square in the middle of it, but their Captain just wouldn't be Mal Reynolds if he couldn't find his way to the heart of trouble blind-folded.

Jack came up to stand with them then, his eyes traveling over the shuttle's interior. "I appreciate you doing this."

He was an interesting man (or rather _alien_, Inara reminded herself), as he didn't even seem remotely flustered by her, and had barely blinked an eye when her profession had been explained to him. He'd just given her a rather piercing look and said, "Hope Reynolds knows how lucky he is to have you," and somehow _she'd_ ended up the flustered one, opening her mouth to explain that it was nothing like that, only to realize the denial would be just as telling.

In the end she'd simply nodded her head in acknowledgment and somehow felt like she'd passed a test when Jack grinned at her.

Very strange man.

His friend was a more curious sort, peppering her with all sorts of questions of ritual and perception until Jack had called out, "For God's sake, Daniel, leave her alone!"

"We're all set," Jack says now, as the flurry of activity died down.

"Okay," Inara says.

"All you have to do is land on that planet, we'll do the rest," he reassured her. They already had it all worked out how she'd land on Metis under the guise of suffering unexpected engine trouble, which Inara would create herself, pulling a few connections here and there that Kaylee had helpfully pointed out. Once the shuttle was repaired she was to take off again and rendezvous with _Serenity_ a few planets over.

Simple. And yet Inara saw at least a hundred different ways for it to go terribly wrong. Not the least of which was leaving the two men on Metis when she had no idea how they planned to get back off.

"Don't you think they will be suspicious?" Inara asked. "It's no secret that I spent time on _Serenity_."

"It doesn't matter if they are," Jack said, something fierce and almost feral shadowing his face. "They won't see this coming."

Inara felt a shiver travel her spine at the familiar words, the unwelcome memories they conjured. Looking across the shuttle, she met Zoe's eye only to find the same hard look echoed there.

"Good luck," Zoe said, turning and stepping out of the shuttle.

Next to Inara, Jack clapped his hands, his entire demeanor changing with a fluidness that part of Inara couldn't help but admire. "Road trip time! I hope you packed the snacks, Daniel."

With that, he disappeared back into the hold, leaving Inara blinking after him, wondering if she'd imagined that hard, predatory look on his face earlier. Definitely a strange man.

She had the feeling the strangeness was just beginning.

* * *

With a soft click-whoosh the Companion's shuttle detached from _Serenity_ and for a moment Vala imagined the bulk of the larger ship swayed astern as if compensating for the loss. She shoved the errant thought aside though, as she had no more time for whimsy than she did for wondering the chances of Daniel or Jack ever setting foot on _Serenity_ again—external variables that had no more influence on her own path than the dwarfed shuttle had on _Serenity_. In theory.

They didn't ask her to go with them on their little rescue mission and she was grateful. Setting foot in that plush mansion with its veneer of lies and civility had been hard enough the first time. She'd done it because she felt maybe she owed it to Daniel. She didn't like that feeling of owing anyone anything. But she was square now, and as much as she wished Sam and Mal good things, she wasn't about to risk a return trip.

She wasn't stupid. She knew why Sam bothered to pull her out of Shanxi in the first place, knew it had more to do with Daniel than any sense of responsibility or attachment to Vala. Daniel's friends, they had no reason to save her, only as a means to Daniel and they had him now. And soon they would have Sam, the full set. And Vala would be obsolete.

Daniel didn't seem to get that Vala didn't need to be rescued, didn't need to depend on their plans. She was more like these people on the ship, and she knew it. Criminals. Entrepreneurs. Predictable, because at least you could trust them to work in their own self-interest and never try to convince you something different. Not like the Tau'ri and their hard sold ideals.

Ideals never lasted in the real world. That was just the way things worked. No matter what galaxy.

"We're coming back for you, you know that right?" Daniel had asked just before he loaded onto the shuttle.

She'd smiled the way she thought he wanted to see. "Good luck, Daniel."

She was better off on _Serenity_ in so many ways, she told herself. So it didn't really matter what Daniel and his friends intended, if they left her behind.

"We break the yoke, only to fit ourselves with new ones when we can't stand the weightlessness."

Startled by the unexpected voice, Vala looked up to find River lying on the walkway above, her fingers stuck through the grating, hair fanned out on either side.

"Excuse me?" Vala asked.

River's head rolled to the side, eyes slipping past Vala. "You think you're being brave, never letting anyone ever control you like that again, never letting something take you over. But maybe being alone ain't the bravery you hope."

The kid's voice was dreamy and insubstantial, but it wasn't the tone that alarmed Vala so much as the words. "You're cracked."

"Sometimes," River admitted, her eyes focusing in on Vala. "But that don't make it any less true."

Vala didn't acknowledge the strange child or her words, just pushed off the wall and left the hold, not stopping until she was back in the small room that had been assigned to her. Her fingers were not quite steady as she checked and rechecked her supplies, slipping them back into their secret hiding places.

She didn't need either of them, she reminded herself. Not this ship or Daniel's promises.

She almost believed it.


	7. Friends and Enemies

**Friends and Enemies**

Mal woke to find his face pressed into a surprisingly plush carpet. Lying there, he couldn't decide if his lingering dizziness was due to an injury or just the riot of colors swimming in front of him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he rolled over with a groan, making several facts clear with the move. One, his hands were bound in front of him. Two, the throbbing pain in his head probably had nothing to do with the nauseating carpet design.

Lovely.

Cracking his eyes open, Mal took in the luxurious office whose floor he was currently lying on. The walls were covered with books, large heavy wood furniture filling the space. Not exactly the sort of prison Mal was used to. He pushed into a seated position and noticed he wasn't alone. A man stood by the door, his vaguely military clothing and sleek little pistol sheathed at his waist seeming to identify him as a guard.

Mal watched him for a few moments, but the guard didn't seem to be paying him no mind, so he experimentally rolled to his feet, only to be brought up short by his restraints. He landed back on his ass with an oomph, and not even that stellar display of grace caught the guard's attention.

Tugging on the restraints, Mal found that they were bolted to a ring protruding between two tapestries. "Now that just don't go with the décor," he noted.

He eyed the guard. Nothing.

"It's enough to make a guy feel unappreciated," Mal muttered.

Before he could completely dedicate himself to the game of Hurl Insults at the Guard, the door to the office opened. Sam strolled in then, her head held high as if the sheer amount of hardware currently limiting her to small shuffling steps didn't bother her none. Three more guards in their bland military uniforms walked in behind her, two of them looking like they'd had a less than enjoyable afternoon. The first was sporting a broken nose and the beginnings of a shiner, the second walking with a slight limp, one hand held to his side as if nursing a busted rib.

It made the thick restraints on Sam's wrists and ankles seem a tad less excessive.

Setting a plush armchair in the center of the room, all three guards manhandled her down onto it, as if they were scared to attempt it without vastly greater numbers.

"Oh, so she gets a chair and I get to sit on the floor like your pet dog," Mal complained. "Real fair."

Sam turned her head slightly to see him. She was a bit disheveled, but seemed in one piece more or less. "Ah. Still alive then, Reynolds?"

At least that sharp tongue of hers still seemed to function well enough.

The injured guards, having secured their prisoner, moved back towards the door.

"It's been fun, boys," Sam said to their retreating backs. "Maybe we can do it again sometime."

They didn't react, even though Mal was sure the other guards were going to give them a hell of a lot of shit later.

"Call me!" Sam shouted as the door closed. Settling back in her chair, she let off a string of startling insults under her breath, a few he wasn't familiar with that he would have to be sure to ask what they meant later.

"Having fun?" Mal asked.

She flicked her hair back over her shoulder. "Tons. What have you been up to?"

Mal stretched his feet out in front of him, leaning back against the wall. "Being unconscious, mostly. You?"

One shoulder lifted. "Tea party."

For some reason, he had the feeling she was completely serious. "Nice. They have those little sandwiches with the crusts trimmed off?"

She didn't get a chance to answer because the door opened again then, a small man with deep lines in his face and silver hair wearing an impeccable black suit entering the chamber. He crossed the room to sit behind the enormous desk that should have dwarfed him but somehow managed to make him only seem bigger.

"Ms. Carter," he said in greeting.

"Quincy," she returned with an irreverent nod.

"You two know each other?" Mal asked.

Sam's smile was grim. "Oh, we're old friends by now."

Quincy folded his hand on the desk. "You've been quite…uncooperative, Ms. Carter," he said, his voice soft and layered with rebuke as one might use to speak to a misbehaving pet.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Sam dutifully drawled, perfectly matching his deliberate tone. "And here I thought we were getting along so well."

Mal snorted in amusement, remembering the pathetic gaits of the wounded guards. He wondered exactly how many men it had taken to restrain her. It seemed Sam had a whole slew of talents she'd failed to mention.

Quincy continued to ignore Mal as if he weren't there. "We just wish to know all about you, your planet, and that wonderful ship you arrived in. We don't have to be enemies."

Sam's face didn't even betray a flicker of understanding. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Quincy gave her a pitying look. "I understand you and your friends are a long way from home. You wish to return there, don't you? I can make that happen."

Sam raised an eyebrow, looking over Quincy with curiosity. "Shouldn't you have horns and a tail to make an offer like that?"

Quincy sighed. "I can see that you cannot be reasoned with. No matter. I have been known to be persuasive when I need to be."

Mal didn't miss the threat there, despite the pleasant tone and polite words he'd couched it in. Sam picked up on it as well, but just pressed her lips together and managed to look very unimpressed.

"If you will not help us…" Quincy's eyes slid over to Mal, acknowledging his presence for the first time. "Perhaps your friend would be more willing to share?"

"He doesn't know anything," Sam said, sounding almost…bored, like all of this was just old hat for her.

"How can we be sure?" Quincy countered and Mal got the feeling there was a spat of 'persuasion' in his immediate future. He hated that.

Sam laughed then, something short and abrasive. "Are you serious?" she asked, giving Mal a skeptical glance. "He's not on our level now is he? He's been out of his element since the first moment I met him."

The guy nodded, as if that statement made any kind of sense. "In that case, we may as well kill him now," he said, but Mal wasn't ready to panic just yet, as for all the craziness of Sam, he still doubted she would drop him out the airlock just to save her own hide.

Sam stared straight back at Quincy and shrugged. "Sure, go for it."

Or not.

Quincy seemed to spend an insanely long time considering killing him, but that might just have seemed that way to Mal. Quincy eventually sighed, long and drawn out and barely audible as he turned back to Sam. "If you will not cooperate, I am afraid we will simply have to take what we need." He smiled. "I'm sure you understand."

Sam did not smile back.

"Please fetch Dr. Deacon," he said to one of the attendants.

Dr. Deacon, as it turned out, looked more like a mad scientist than a physician. He was almost comically tall when standing near Quincy, and beanpole thin. It was the flat, dead quality to the guy's eyes and the Frankenstein machine he carted in with him that made him less amusing.

"Dr. Deacon specializes in psychoneurology," Quincy explained. "It's a fascinating field."

Sam was still under the Doctor's touch as he attached about a dozen small circles to Sam's head along her hairline; each one topped with a thin filament that lead back to the machine on the cart.

"The brain is an amazing thing," Dr. Deacon said as he stood over Sam, his voice low and paper-thin. "With the proper stimulation, the human brain is capable of rendering untold agony onto the body, without the need of any…physical mess."

He leaned in closer to Sam, his mouth near her cheek as he spoke. "Would you like to see?"

Sam, for her part, didn't betray even the tiniest flicker of fear or distaste, merely stared back at the man in a way that made Mal absolutely certain this was not the first time she'd been threatened with torture.

Deacon looked up at Quincy as if for permission.

"You may begin."

Mal didn't know what the machine did, just watched the way Sam's jaw clenched, sweat working its way down her face as her body twitched from some unseen impulse. Watched the way she fought back against letting even the tiniest sound escape her.

Mal learned to keep his damn mouth shut after his first outburst only resulted in Deacon turning up the intensity.

For almost two hours Quincy sat at his desk and watched Sam writhe and fight against the pain, the stoic look on his face never slipping even as she remained stubbornly silent, leaving his numerous questions unanswered.

At precisely nine o'clock a gilded mantle clock delicately rang and Quincy finally held up a hand. "That will do for now," he said.

Deacon nodded, turning off the machine with a soft click that left Sam listing against the chair, her breath coming out short and fast.

"We will give you some time to rest, Ms. Carter, and hopefully find some new perspective." With a flick of his hand, one of the attendants immediately appeared at Quincy's side, leaning in close to hear his master's words. "Please have them moved them downstairs, and take blood samples from each."

"Of course," the attendant answered, his head bowing.

They were removed to a small chamber in the basement, and rather that putting up a fight, this time Sam practically had to be carried by the guards.

"This is more like it," Mal said, looking around the small chamber.

The walls were a drab beige cement color with no windows and one hard bench lining the back wall. That was where they dumped Mal, linking his heavy manacles on his wrists and ankles through solid loops on the walls.

Sam, being the special specimen she was, got her own cot. They rolled her onto it with little care. Mal tried his best not to notice the drain in the floor, or the heavy metal hooks in the ceiling, but thankfully the guards simply left them alone, the day's quota of brutality apparently filled.

Mal watched Sam for a while, but didn't want to bother her, as she seemed to have dozed off (or more likely lost consciousness, but he was really hoping it was just sleep). If anyone had earned a little rest, after all, it was Sam.

Testing the boundaries of his restraints, Mal shifted around and tried to find something resembling a comfortable position on the bench to catch a little shut-eye himself. He'd finally wrestled something resembling repose when Sam spoke.

"Mal?" she said, her voice thin.

He lifted his head. "Yeah?"

Her eyes cracked open to peer across at him. "If it makes you feel any better," she said, the sweat still cooling on her brow, "I knew he wouldn't kill you."

Damned if he didn't believe her.

* * *

Sam was driving their captors insane.

That didn't surprise Mal none, having been someone on the other end of trying to keep her in line. No, the surprising fact was that now that they were clearly on the same side, he was actually kind of fond of her. And wasn't that just a kick to the head?

They'd been moved yet again, this time to a room with pristine surfaces and glass shelves holding objects like some fancy museum. Mal didn't know much about these Ancients Sam had mentioned, but he knew enough to recognize that this collection of artifacts was similar. He skimmed the objects, wondering if any of these things could get them the hell out of here, remembering the one back on _Serenity_. Being invisible might come in handy right about now.

Quincy didn't attend them himself today, no doubt having many important evil overlord things to take care of, sending a thickset, eager acolyte by the name of Cyrus in his place with Dr. Deacon.

When it became clear that they were going to simply pick up where they left off the night before, Mal did his best impression of a pain in the ass, but rather than deflecting any attention from Sam, he just earned himself some more quality unconscious time.

They had her hooked up to the damn machine again by the time Mal swam back to consciousness.

"You know what these are," Cyrus said, one hand sweeping towards the displays.

Sam looked them over, no overt sign of recognition visible. "Toasters?" she guessed.

Cyrus nodded to Deacon, who apparently ramped the machine up because Sam snapped her mouth closed over an unsteady gasp.

Cyrus moved closer to her, looking down with cold disdain. "Do you really think we don't know what you are? Where you come from?"

Sam didn't answer, just dug her fingers into the arm of her chair.

Cyrus watched her twitch for a few minutes before gesturing to Deacon. From the way Sam's body sagged forward, Mal assumed he'd finally turned the thing off.

He leaned into her, his voice lowering to a whisper. "We've been waiting for you, Samantha Carter of Earth."

Her eyes darted to his and it was the closest Mal had ever seen her to panic. Cyrus saw it to, to judge from the smile on his face. Cyrus turned his attention to Mal. "Who do you think, my dear Captain, commissioned you to retrieve the item from Shanxi in the first place?"

Mal felt his stomach do a little a quick little jig, trying not to let any of his surprise show. Exactly how long had these _wang ba dan_ been manipulating things?

The soft words, when they came, were from Sam. "Only someone with knowledge of the Ancients could have interfaced with the security system," she said, her head rolling back against the chair behind her. "Damn. I really should have seen that coming."

Mal whistled. "That's quite the twisty plan you guys came up with. You must be smarter than you look."

As usual, Cyrus barely spared him a glance. His inability to take their attention off of Sam for a moment was beginning to bug the hell out of him. Wasn't he worth torturing too? It was enough to give a guy an inferiority complex.

"Not that all went perfectly to plan," Cyrus said, his voice hardening. "Your friends were not supposed to abscond with Dr. Jackson. We underestimated them. We won't make that mistake again."

Mal laughed. "You think they're coming back?" he asked. "Even they ain't that stupid."

He hoped.

Cyrus seemed unconcerned by the proclamation though, instead gesturing to a guard. "Release her restraints."

Mal couldn't help but think of those beaten guards from the first day as they moved across the room to free her. He really, really hoped this was them underestimating her. But then Sam tried and failed to get to her feet and Mal was forced to realize just how weak the machine was making her.

He wondered how much more of this she could take.

At Cyrus' command, the guards dragged Sam to her feet, moving her across the room to stand next to the first display table holding one of the strange objects.

"Touch it," Cyrus ordered.

When she didn't move fast enough for his taste, he grabbed her hand and pressed it down on the device.

Mal wasn't sure what he expected, but released a breath of relief when long moments passed with nothing happening. Cyrus looked distinctly unhappy though, letting go of her hand with a sound of frustration, a high color building in his cheeks. Clearly he had been banking on a different outcome.

"If she isn't the one who activated the Ancient ship, then it must have been her companion," Cyrus said, sounding like he was talking to himself out loud.

Sam lifted her face then, and Mal was surprised to see the disdain there, the stubborn gleam in her eye not even remotely dulled. "Have you ever considered that these Ancients didn't want you messing with their things?" she asked, leaning hard on the table to keep her equilibrium. "That they saw you as little more than rats running through a maze? That you aren't _worthy_ of their secrets?"

"You will be quiet!" Cyrus exclaimed, his voice tinged with an edge of hysteria. Then, to Mal's complete surprise, he emphasized the order with a backhand to Sam's face, nearly knocking her to the floor.

Sam swayed dangerously, but managed to keep her feet, looking back up at Cyrus with something like satisfaction in her face as if pleased to have finally made one of them lose their composure. "Temper, temper," she said, clucking her tongue in disapproval.

Mal had to admit that it was pretty nice to see their normally cold-to-the-point-of-sinister hosts show an actual emotion other than self-satisfaction, he just wasn't sure Sam getting herself beat up was really worth it.

Cyrus seemed to consider raising his hand to her again, only to take a deep breath, both hands smoothing down his suit. "Return them to their room," he said, and Mal could hear the tremor just underlying his voice. "That will be enough for today."

Back in their cell, Mal watched Sam struggle to find a comfortable position on the cot. "I know this probably sounds funny coming from me, but do you really think it's such a good idea to goad them?"

Sam let out a huff, only to press one hand to her side with a hiss. "Maybe not. But it's so much more fun this way."

Mal shook his head. "You may just be the craziest damn woman I have ever met, and that's saying a lot."

Sam grimaced, nodding. "Yeah. It's possible I've spent a little too much time around Jack."

Her expression faltered then and Mal hated it, the way she suddenly looked every inch the exhausted victim she was. "You actually think they're going to come back for us," he said, just to get a reaction.

She looked up at him, any hint of exhaustion or weakness gone beneath the gleam of absolute certainty. "Don't you?"

Yeah, he really did. They were just that kind of stupid.

* * *

The device they were using reminded Sam of a slightly milder, but more invasive version of the Goa'uld hand device. Worse on some levels because it was an internalized pain extending to every part of her body that she just couldn't move away from, no matter how hard she tried. It didn't quite make her brain feel like it was liquefying though, so that was a bonus. She imagined they wanted the pain with none of the lingering effects to the brain.

They needed her intellect intact. She didn't know if that was a comfort or not.

She understood that look on Vala's face now though. The one she wore when she spoke of the day their questions ceased to be quite so polite. Maybe the solitary confinement had been the kinder of the two.

Cyrus was back again today, only this time with one of his friends and Sam wondered if maybe he'd gotten in trouble for hitting her yesterday. Quincy and his followers seemed to abhor physical violence of any kind, which had been the main reason she'd goaded him into it. They seemed to believe their control was absolute. She wanted to remind them that control is an illusion.

Maybe because of her exhaustion, it took Sam a while to notice that something was different today, something beyond the small outburst yesterday. Cyrus was flustered, moving about the space with agitated motions and listless focus as if he couldn't quite decide what to do next. She watched them as Deacon hooked up the torture machine, Cyrus and his friend arguing back in forth in whispered conversations.

"You're panicking," Sam observed. "Has something changed?" Time between torture sessions seemed to have decreased rapidly, so either they just didn't like her very much, or they were feeling pressured. Running out of time maybe?

Sam ran through everything she knew about these people, from Vala, from what she'd witnessed herself. What could they possibly fear enough to put such obvious cracks in their previously seamless facades? Was this the real underlying reason she'd been able to get a rise out of Cyrus the day before?

"Is it the Alliance?" she guessed, seeming to hit pay dirt when the smaller one's face flushed.

Behind her, she heard Mal tug against his restraints. "Let me guess," he said, picking up on the thread and gleefully jumping in. "In your haste to capture Sam and her friends, you clued the Alliance in, didn't you. It was Alliance ships that almost nabbed us off of Shanxi, not you guys."

"Ignore them," Cyrus ordered his companion, but his voice wasn't completely steady, and Sam felt a smile on her face for the first time in days.

Sam turned to Mal. "I imagine the Alliance wouldn't be too happy to realize they have some fanatic fraternity poisoning the ranks," she observed.

Mal laughed. "They kept their little enterprise secret for how long? Ages? Only to blow it because they got a little too impatient." He shook his head.

"That's got to be embarrassing."

"Don't it just," Mal agreed.

"You will be quiet!" Cyrus exclaimed then, apparently forgetting his own orders. He strode forward, pushing Deacon aside and slamming his hand down on the controls of the torture device.

Sam bit back a groan as the far too familiar pressure began to build.

"Where is Jack O'Neill?" Cyrus demanded.

"Go to hell," Sam ground out.

He twisted the dial, and Sam couldn't quite hold in a cry of pain this time, tears building in her eyes. "Oh, God," she gasped, aware that Mal was shouting something in the distance, but not quite able to make out his words.

She tried to breathe through the pain, focusing in on a point in the distance just past her interrogator. She stared hard at that spot, pushing her entire will into keeping her mouth shut, not giving them whatever they want just to make. it. stop.

It wasn't until something shifted—lights and color where a moment ago there hadn't been any—that she realized she was staring at an Ancient phase-shifter. And it was active.

Cyrus asked her something again and she just shook her head, staring hard at the phase-shifter.

_Please, God_, she thought as the pain ratcheted up yet again, and who knew there could be _more_?

Mal was hollering again, and Sam's vision began to blur. She barely noticed the flash of light through her agony, the chaos of sound and movement around her, but sharp words barked in a familiar voice penetrated the haze of her mind.

"Turn it off. _Now_." Then the distinct sound of a weapon arming. "Or I blow your goddamn head off."

And then, miraculously, the machine shut off, taking with it the majority of the pain. She sagged forward, only the restraints keeping her in the chair. There was the sound of what might have been zat fire, but she was too busy trying not to throw up to give it too much thought.

Her restraints released, and she didn't have the energy to hold herself up, but Jack was there, breaking her fall, his arms solid around her as she slid to the ground. She felt the slight pull against her skin as he ripped the devices off her.

She let out a shaky breath as her head came to rest against his chest. "Perfect timing," she mumbled.

His fingers brushed her cheek, cool and comforting against her flushed skin. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

Swallowing hard against the pain, she blinked the tears out of her eyes and nodded up at Jack, doing her best to ignore the impulse to just stay here, melted into him. She knew they were far from home free.

_Suck it up, Carter._

"I'll live," she said, trying to shift her weight to her own feet. Looking past Jack's shoulder, she noticed the man standing behind him. "Oh. Hey, Daniel."

Daniel smiled down at her, and it was like no time had passed since she last saw him. "Hey, Sam," he said, his voice gentle, and she could almost pretend this was just any other of a million missions spent together.

"As sweet as this little reunion is, do you think someone could maybe get me out of these?" Mal demanded, rattling his restraints.

Jack looked back at Daniel, his voice light even as his hands still gripped her as if scared to let go. "I can't remember. Did Zoe want us to bring him back?"

Daniel shrugged. "She looked pretty happy to have her own ship."

Sam snorted, feeling something like warmth fill her stomach at the familiar banter. It's just enough to shove the pain back far enough to get to her feet, Jack's grip on her arm keeping her steady. "Play time's over," she said.

Jack tossed Daniel a set of keys while Sam took a moment to look around the room. Cyrus and his friend were collapsed in a tangled little heap; Deacon collapsed half over his sick little machine.

Leaning on Jack, Sam took a few wobbling steps closer, reaching out and shoving Deacon to the ground. "Zat?" she asked, holding her hand out to Jack.

He passed the zat over, holding her steady as she fired the zat at the machine, once, twice, the thing sizzling and short circuiting in a satisfying shower of sparks. A third blast and it was as if it never existed.

"Better?" Jack asked, his arm squeezing her waist.

"Much."

He helped her over the first table where she grabbed the edge and was able to take her own weight. Things seemed just a bit more doable now that Deacon and his toy were out of the equation.

"I'm good," she said to Jack, who seemed a bit reluctant to let go of her, but after another long moment of looking at her, he did. She watched Jack cross over to turn the phase-shifter off. There was no way they were giving these bastards even a tiny hint about this technology.

"Not that I'm not all kinds of thankful," Mal said, now moving freely through the display cases rubbing at his wrists. "But how exactly did you get here?"

Jack clapped Mal on the shoulder. "A friend of yours was nice enough to give us a lift in her fancy shuttle."

Mal's face blanched a bit, his head swiveling around the room as if looking for someone else. "She's not--."

"No," Jack said quickly, giving Mal a look Sam couldn't quite interpret. "She's safe."

Mal nodded, looking relieved. "Okay."

Jack shot him his smug bastard smile then. "Just be sure to thank her when we get back."

Mal's eyes narrowed.

Frankly, Sam didn't have the energy to dissect the byplay. Instead, she looked down at the table in front of her. She'd had long hours to study the contents and unerringly reached for a small rectangular pad. Catching Jack's eye, she tossed it to him and the thing hummed quietly into life at his merest touch.

"Nice," Jack said, looking down at the life signs detector. "This should make things easier."

He took a step towards her, as if to help her, but beyond the very valid point that he was still injured himself, she knew they needed him to lead them out, so she turned to Daniel.

"Hey, Daniel," she said, holding out her arm to him. He looked up from the artifact he was studying. "Give a girl a hand."

"Of course," he said, stepping up next to her, his arm wrapping around her waist.

Sam looked over at him, trying to reassure herself that they had actually finally found him. She tugged at the scruff wreathing his jaw. "Nice beard."

He shrugged. "Seemed the thing to do."

"I bet," she said, trying to smash down the raw relief she felt at standing there with him reassuringly solid next to her. "I'm really glad you're okay, Daniel."

"Thanks for coming."

She smiled, because even though abandoning him was never an option, the whole thing _had_ been an intergalactic pain in the ass. In honor of that very valid point, she took a moment to pinch him hard on the arm. It was a good one, the one she learned from her brother that could leave tingling numbness for hours.

Daniel dutifully yelped, rubbing at his shoulder and frowning at her. "What was that for?"

She leaned in to him. "For making us worry."

Mal glanced between them. "It's sort of comforting to know she treats everyone this way."

"Come on, kids," Jack interrupted. He handed Sam and Mal each a weapon. "Time to go."

Sam reached for the pistol gratefully. "Exit strategy?"

"We figured out where your ship is," Daniel supplied. "Thanks to those inventories you took from Shanxi."

"Ah," Sam said. "Their own meticulousness coming back to bite them in the ass. I like it."

Daniel grinned. "I think there's a parable in there somewhere."

"Wait," Mal interjected. "Why do we need another ship?"

Jack glanced over at Mal with a smirk. "Oh, trust me, Reynolds. You're gonna like this ship."

With one last glance back at her, he led them out into the hall.

* * *

Between the lifesigns detector and Daniel's knowledge of the layout of the complex, they moved swiftly through the corridors. That was their weakness, these bastards with their obsession with the Ancients. They revered the technology, but had no idea what it was capable of. And now it was coming back to bite them in the ass.

Just when Sam was fairly certain she couldn't go another step, they pulled up outside a large metal door.

"I've got four people inside," Jack said, his voice quiet. He held the detector out so they could all see the position of the guards. "Daniel, you stay here with Sam."

Jack's eyes darted to her, as if expecting an argument, but Sam just nodded her agreement. She would just get in the way at this point.

"Okay," Jack said, giving her another worried glance. "We'll be right back."

Mal and Jack disappeared inside, and less than a minute or two later, alarms of some sort went off, lights and sound filling the hallway with an eerie wail. "So much for plan A," Daniel muttered, pulling his weapon and reaching for the door panel.

"Plan A never works," Sam said, trying to take as much of her own weight as she could. If they were going to have to fight their way out of here, there was no way she was going to be dead weight.

Before they could duck inside though, Mal appeared, pulling Sam's free arm over his shoulder. "That wasn't us, I swear."

Sure enough, inside the hangar was quiet, the few guards and researchers sprawled on the floor. Mal and Daniel rushed her across the floor to where the puddle jumper sat, ramp open and waiting for them.

"Strap in!" Jack yelled back at them as they entered and Sam moved forward to take the empty seat next to him.

He looked over at her. "I sure hope they haven't messed with anything or this is going to be a short trip."

"I'm not worried," she said, crossing her fingers for luck out of sight. As far as she was concerned, they'd _earned_ things finally going their way for once.

He held her gaze just a moment longer before turning his attention completely to the ship, and it surged to life around them. "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

"Um. Anyone else notice the distinct lack of exit?" Mal called out.

Jack just smirked, his hands tightening around the controls. From their precious hoard of drones, two burst out, arcing up into the large metal doors in the ceiling, the blast of impact rocking the entire complex.

"I believe that's our cue," Jack said.

The ship darted forward, weaving in between pieces of falling debris until Sam caught sight of long rolling lawns and a flash of blue sky. Once clear, the ship shifted, sliding into invisibility as they raced for open space and Sam let her head fall back against the headrest with a sigh of relief.

Breaking atmo, they unexpectedly came face to face with an orbiting Alliance cruiser. Jack reacted instantly, the ship swerving through a few daredevil maneuvers to avoid collision until they slid smoothly under the belly of the hulking ship, the Alliance none the wiser for the close encounter.

In the following silence, Mal let out a low whistle. "Not bad, O'Neill."

Jack grinned, looking over at Sam. "Like riding a bicycle."

She reached for his hand, threading her fingers through his, squeezing gently.

Daniel found, ship retrieved, all alive and accounted for—mission accomplished, she thought as her eyes closed.

Definitely time for a nap.


	8. Settling

**Settling**

Simon had Sam in the infirmary, despite her protests. Other than the one bruise to her face, Mal knew none of her injuries were visible, or even physical. He doubted Simon could do anything for those. Jack hovered right behind her though, not touching her, but seeming to wait for the moment she actually unclenched enough to betray some real emotion. Daniel was the one who kept up a steady stream of talk, and instead of finding that annoying or intruding, Jack and Sam just shared relieved smiles when he wasn't looking.

If Mal's stint with these folks had taught him anything, it was that these strangers weren't all that different than his crew. They seemed to form a family no less improbable than his own.

Her perfume reached him first, just a moment before Inara stepped up next to him, looking in on the infirmary as well.

That he'd been surprised to find her aboard _Serenity_ when he got back would be an understatement. "I hear it I have you to thank for my rescue," Mal said.

"I just gave them a ride."

A ride some distance from the Training House with little or no warning. It was no small feat, and as much as he knew he shouldn't think any of it, he couldn't help turning to her, taking in her calm profile. "You still have my thanks," he said.

She turned to look at him, holding his gaze just a beat too long. "I'm always happy to help."

As with most of her words, he was never quite sure what delicate layers of meaning she had hidden in there, or if he was just scrambling for something that wasn't there like the fool he definitely was.

She looked away. "You always did know how to find them," she commented.

"What?"

Her head tilted towards the crowd in the infirmary. "Misfits."

Mal's lips twisted. "What does that make you?"

She wasn't quite looking at him, but her lips acted out a careful choreography, the slow burn of a practiced intimate smile that he tried to resent. Tried and mostly failed, as usual.

"I was never overly fond of being told what to do," she said.

Which was strange for a Companion who from the earliest age must have been told exactly what to do, think, _be_. But maybe that was why. Why Inara always had a tinge of revolution in her veins.

"Too true," he said. "And I speak as someone who's been foolish enough to try."

She smiled again, only this time something closer to the surface, more genuine he thought. "I should return to the Training House," she said, taking a step back and easily breaking the moment.

He cleared his throat. "Why don't you linger a bit? Just until we see how this whole Alliance-Illuminati kerfuffle susses out. I'd hate for you to get caught in the middle of any of it." They'd passed a small fleet of Alliance vessels on a direct course for Metis as they'd fled in Jack's quick little ship. Since then there'd been strange bursts of rumor and whispers on the Cortex.

He tried not to read too much into the hearsay and sky is falling panic, but one thing was clear—the Illuminati had bigger problems than their escaped prisoners now.

Inara looked down at her hands, the tiniest gap in her grace as her fingers twisted together. "I suppose that would be the prudent thing to do."

"Good," he said with enough relief for her to glance up at him with a raised eyebrow. He coughed, backtracking as best he could. "Kaylee misses you."

Inara's lips pressed together. "Of course, she does."

"Well," Mal said, suddenly feeling the need to get outside the range of her smile. "I should go see how our guests are faring."

She nodded, stepping away to head for the mess.

"Mal?"

He turned, looking back at her.

"I miss Kaylee, too," she tossed back over her shoulder, her eyes sparkling with humor.

He let himself stand there smiling after her for a while like the damn fool he was before forcing himself back into the infirmary.

It was good to be home.

* * *

"Discovered the meaning of life yet?"

Daniel looked up from the screen on his lap to find Sam standing over him. "What?" he asked, blinking up at her.

She gestured at the mess of papers fanned around him. "How's it going?"

Since returning to _Serenity_ a few days ago, Daniel spent most of his hours sitting here, sifting through the files, trying to get a clearer picture of the Illuminati, their origins and foundations. It seemed important, this explanation for something that so horrified him, the corruption of learning and scientific inquiry. Or maybe he was just using that to fill the hours.

"Slowly," Daniel answered, shifting some of the papers to make room for Sam on the couch. "You?"

Kaylee had been teaching Sam _Serenity_'s system so she could find the best way to integrate the phase shifter into the ship's systems. At any given time, the two women could be found all over the ship with their heads' lowered together, River never far behind.

Sam dropped down next to Daniel with a weary sigh. "Pretty much the same. I'm beginning to regret that rash promise to help integrate the phase shifter into _Serenity_. It could very well take the rest of my life."

They hadn't talked much about going back to Earth; just let it hang there like an assumption. Some day. Soon.

Daniel wasn't sure if they were putting off the prospect of being stuck in the jumper together for four weeks, or if it was just the uncertainty of what consequences awaited them back on Earth that kept them on _Serenity_. On the surface, they were simply fulfilling their half of the bargain. Maybe building back up their strength.

Next to him, Sam leaned back against the couch, her hands lifting to massage at her temples. They hadn't spoken much since they were reunited, at least not about anything serious. Like the torture he'd caught only a glimpse of but was enough to make him nauseous. But he knew she didn't want to talk about that anymore than he did, really, so he grabbed on to another topic he'd been toying with.

"So, you didn't let Teal'c in on your little adventure, huh?"

Sam grimaced, pressing her hands down over her face. "We didn't exactly give him a choice." She looked over at Daniel. "He would have come though. You know that."

Daniel nodded. "Yeah, I know." He just wondered exactly how pissed Teal'c was going to be when they eventually did get home.

"We didn't know if we would ever make it back," Sam said, sounding a bit defensive of their choice, but it could just be this new brittle edge to her he'd noticed since her rescue. He wondered how new it was. "He has Rya'c and Ishta and an entire nation looking to him. He had way too much to leave behind."

"And you didn't?"

Dropping her hands from her face, Sam turned to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"Didn't you have a lot to lose?"

Her mouth opened and closed as if she was having a hard time processing the question. She took a deep breath. "That's…different."

"Why?" She'd left her career, her brother, her _planet_, and possibly any last chance at a real life. How was that really any different?

Sam looked down at her hands, her fingers twisting together in her lap. "Because I didn't."

Daniel was beginning to think he'd lost the thread of this confusing conversation. "Didn't what?"

"Leave everything behind."

Daniel's brow furrowed, and when Sam finally looked up at him, her eyes darted towards the infirmary. He could just make out the soft rumble of voices inside where Simon was giving Jack a wound check up.

"I had what I needed," Sam said, meeting his gaze squarely.

Daniel had wondered exactly what was going on with Jack and Sam, the obvious closeness they exhibited. He assumed it was maybe some form of comfort they grabbed onto while they were on the run, becoming even more fundamentally a two-person unit by necessity. But staring at Sam now, he was forced to consider that it was way more than comfort.

Daniel was still trying to think of some sort of response when Jack ducked out of the infirmary. "Thanks, Doc," he was saying back over his shoulder.

Next to Daniel, Sam shifted. "All done?" she asked.

Jack grinned, holding out his arms. "You are looking at a completely stitch-free man."

Sam's elbow tapped Daniel's ribs, sliding him a wry glance. "Yes, well. We'll see how long that lasts."

Jack pressed one hand to his chest as if mortally offended. "Ye of little faith!"

She smiled, a tired little slash of a gesture, and shook her head. "No, just exhausted."

Jack's expression faltered long enough for Daniel to see the worry lodged underneath his typical irreverence. Then he made a big show of clapping his hands, giving both of them a stern glance. "That's because it's way past your bedtimes, kiddos."

"Just five more minutes?" Daniel quipped.

"Okay," Jack said, "but no bedtime story for you."

Sam let out a huff of amusement, her shoulder bumping against Daniel's. "Goodnight, Daniel," she said. Then she held her hands out to Jack, letting him pull her to her feet, not moving away from him when she reached equilibrium.

"Night," Daniel said, watching them cross the room, the way Jack's hand hovered at Sam's back like it belonged there. They turned into the dormitory and out of sight.

"You look surprised."

Daniel twisted around to see Vala leaning against the doorway from the cargo hold. He had no idea how long she'd been standing there. Her eyes darted in the direction Jack and Sam just disappeared.

"Is that new?" she asked.

"Yes," Daniel said, still feeling a little off-balance. Then, rethinking, he was forced to add, "And no." Shaking his head, he gave Vala a wry smile. "It's…complicated."

"It always is," she said. Crossing the room, she glanced down at the papers spread all over the floor. "One would think you've had enough studying for a lifetime, Daniel."

Leaning back against the couch, Daniel pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I'm sure you're right," he said. He had to consider that whatever he was looking for—an explanation for everything they've gone through, some snippet of information that might somehow make it all worthwhile—just might not exist.

He felt the couch dip as Vala sat down next to him, her fingers trailing down his arm. "Maybe you just need a distraction."

Peering sideways at her, Daniel didn't miss the inherent invitation wreathed in her smile, the way her body leaned into his. He'd always thought before that this was just her way, over the top and seductive, but now he began to wonder. He'd watched her closely on _Serenity_ since he got back, noted the way she was a bit adrift, constantly trying to gauge which way the wind was blowing. She was still hoarding food and supplies, he knew, her little game with Jayne playing out on the side, and sometimes he couldn't help but think of her as a spider, spinning a delicate web, always a new direction to scrabble, no matter how many foundations she lost.

"Have you decided yet?" he asked.

"What?" she said, her voice still warm and liquid.

"Who to throw your lot in with. Us. Them. Maybe just steal a ship and be on your own?"

She looked surprised, her back stiffening beneath the seductive softness. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He gave her a weak smile, one finger lifting to trail across her pale cheek. When he looked close enough, past the bluster and bombast, he could find traces of those long months on Shanxi, the fragile angles of her face that she would hate anyone for seeing.

"I'm sorry I couldn't stop them from taking you away," he said.

Her expression hardened, her eyes closing off as she pushed up off the couch. "It's not your job to take care of me, Daniel." She turned away from him and started for the stairs.

"You haven't figured it out yet, have you?" Daniel asked, and she stopped halfway across the room, her back still to him. "I could just tell you that we have your back, that we aren't going to bail on you at the worst possible moment, that that's just not the kind of thing we do, but something tells me you won't believe it anyway, no matter what you've seen."

Getting up from the couch he crossed the room to stand behind her, his hands lifting to her shoulders. "I'm not one of your angles, Vala," he said softly. "But that doesn't mean I'm going anywhere."

He had honestly expected her to shove out of his grasp, to leave him standing there with nothing but a sharp-edged retort to remind him that Vala Mal Doran didn't need people, didn't need anything but herself. Instead, she stood there as if transfixed, completely still but for the slow, even swell of her breathing.

Daniel dared to step slightly closer; his hands sliding down her arms. "So go ahead," he said. "Do whatever it is you think you have to. Work your angles, test out the other side. Just don't be surprised if I'm still here when you're ready to stop running."

He didn't really expect an answer, so didn't wait for one. Before he really gave the action real thought, he surprised them both by lowering his face to her hair, his lips pressing to the crown of her head.

"Goodnight, Vala," he said.

Before he could step away though, her hand reached back and grabbed his. She twisted around to face him, looking almost as startled as he did, staring at her fingers like traitors.

"Pleasant dreams," she finally settled on, her voice somewhere between flippant and confused as she squeezed his fingers once before letting go and escaping up the stairs.

He stood there a while longer, trying to figure out just what exactly had just happened. "You too," he said to the now empty room.

* * *

Days on _Serenity_ quickly fell into routine, the ship's crew adjusting to accommodate four new people with such ease that Sam began to suspect there had been empty gaps in need of filling. But none of them ever mentioned loss or people who once were, and Sam never asked, so she couldn't be sure.

Everyone but Jack assumed she wasn't paying attention when she had schematics in front of her, as she dug her way through the guts of _Serenity_. Jayne assumed she didn't see him leering at Vala, while Vala probably thought Sam didn't notice she was using Jayne's attention to needle Daniel. Daniel probably didn't want her to see that it was working. But she did.

She watched Kaylee make doe eyes at Simon, and the way Kaylee made Simon forget to be so perfect all the time. She watched River watch everyone else, the girl's hands gentle on _Serenity_ like the ship was made of flesh and not just metal. She watched Mal and Inara in the hall together, the way their words were always sharp while their bodies spoke something else entirely.

Sam watched them all as her hands and mind went through the familiar motions, but more often than not it was Jack who caught her eye, who dragged her mind away from Ancient tech and alien ships and the way Zoe was sad all the time without seeming like it on the surface.

At first, Jack spent a lot of time near Daniel, like some unavoidable instinct kept making him double check just in case. It took her a while to realize that it wasn't just Daniel he was following around, but her too. He never bothered her when she was working—orbiting, but not approaching.

And when she'd had enough and would shove everything aside and drop down on the couch next to him, head on his shoulder, he always looked a bit taken aback. Pleased, but surprised. His fingers played with the ends of her hair and she would wonder how long he'd been looking at her like that—like he'd come not to expect too much from her.

She was lighter, since they got Daniel back, the gravity under her feet finally seeming to even itself out. She didn't exactly feel like a weightless super hero, but things didn't hang on her quite so heavy, and it wasn't until this shift that she realized just how far off mark things had wandered. How much energy she'd put into survival and how little they'd invested in each other, despite their intentions.

_They were sitting in her car, the rain plunking hollowly on the roof. In her lap was the plan, the way to save Daniel, the physical evidence of the unspoken agreement they'd made across the briefing room table as the IOA shattered the last of their hopes of avoiding this drastic step. _

_They were officially out of choices._

_She passed the folder to him, resting it on his knee, but when he reached to take it, she put her hand on his, keeping the folder closed over the damning evidence—the words that made them thieves and traitors. He stilled under the touch, waiting for her to speak._

_She licked her lips, fighting the dryness of her mouth. "We do this as equals," she said, her voice quiet in the car, barely louder than the rain. _

_Equals._

_This was her one condition. She could give everything else up. Her job, her career, her life, but she absolutely refused to let this be just another excuse between them. She refused to forget the small handful of clumsy not-quite-dates since he was promoted, the awkward phone conversations laced with promise. It would be too easy to go back to the way things had always been before in the face of this impossible mission. _

_He was staring at her now; she could feel it against her skin like a physical sensation. She allowed herself one calm breath and then forced herself to look away from the steering wheel, to look up and over at him, to meet his gaze._

_His hand twisted under hers, pressing upward so his palm was flush against hers and it should be ridiculous that so far this was the most intimate they'd ever been, if not for the hum of electricity that travels over her skin at the mere touch—the promise of so much more._

"_Okay," he agreed._

_It wouldn't be easy for either of them. His instinct would always be to lead, hers to toe the line, but the journey they were embarking on was untested, unmapped in every way, not just in this one way. They might have to make it all up as they go along._

_She leaned across the center console and kissed him._

She feared that maybe all they'd done this last year was find another type of limbo to replace the one they'd already been in. It made her listless, this dawning realization as if waking from a dream, and her work with Kaylee could only distract her so much.

If Sam closed her eyes, sometimes she could still smell that afternoon—damp and leather and skin and electricity.

Other days, it just seemed impossibly far away.

She leaned against Jack's shoulder, feeling his fingers in her hair, and wondered where exactly she took her wrong step.

* * *

Jack wandered _Serenity_ from room to room. He was beginning to get a feel for her, the ship's personality, the way she fit the people who called her home. He still thought they were all barking mad more often than not, but there were worse things to be, because out here in the dark they were bonded as something more than a team and that was something Jack understood better than most.

He finally tracked down Sam in the engine room.

Leaning over the engine, half climbed into it, she was wearing a pair of worn overalls with a tank top underneath. Her skin glowed with a slight sheen of exertion, a black streak running down one arm. Her hair was twisted back into a messy bun as if done as an afterthought, renegade strands escaping down the back of her neck.

This wasn't the Carter he knew before they came on this trip, not by a long shot. But neither was this the unyielding machine she'd become during those long months of being run to ground like animals. She seemed at ease, and he wondered if he was finally getting a glimpse of Sam Carter the woman—not the soldier, not the hard ass survivor—but rather the side of her that he had barely begun to catch sparse glimpses of before this whole mess began.

He scuffed his foot on the threshold and Sam didn't look up from the engine, just waved one hand in his general direction. "Kaylee, did you find that--."

"Sorry," Jack said, cutting across her. "It's just me."

She looked up, her surprise quickly morphing into genuine pleasure. "Hi," she said, putting down her tool and wiping her hands on the oversized overalls in a way that revealed a flash of her midriff.

"Just so you know, I totally renounce the skirt," he said, gazing appreciatively at the tank top she wore.

She laughed, smiling up at him and it was almost like physical impact, that smile, the way she focused in on him to the exclusion of all else. It always knocked him sideways just a bit, because it felt like it had been a long, long time since she really saw him and not the next obstacle, the next scramble.

He stepped closer, one hand unerringly seeking out that exposed patch of flesh, the other lifting to play with the strand of hair flying free near her temple. "Hi," he said, the back of his hand brushing her cheek.

Her smile slipped as he continued to stare down at her with all the intensity of a long overdue reunion. She'd always been just a little too good at reading him. Her gaze was steady as she looked back at him, her hand fisting in his shirt as if scared he might pull away.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He shook his head. He didn't need an apology.

"I shut down on you," she said.

"We were just trying to survive anyway we could, Carter," he said and it felt surprisingly right to call her that again, because maybe 'Sam', for all the freedom it afforded, really was more an alias than anything.

Her brow furrowed, her eyes slipping just past him and he knew she'd been thinking about this for a while herself, beating herself up about it. "I think, all those years on SG-1," she said, "it got drilled into my head that the way I feel about you is a weakness. And when things went so horribly wrong here…" Her eyes refocused on him. "I couldn't risk being weak."

No wonder she went so cold when he accused her of panicking when she took up Mal's offer. Well done, O'Neill. "This," he said, pulling her closer, "what we have, it's not a weakness, Carter. It never has been."

"I know," she said, lacing her arms around his neck. "I'm beginning to think we might not have pulled this off without it." She gave him a wry glance. "Irrational panic and all."

Jack winced a bit at having his words tossed back at him, but Sam just laughed, her fingers slipping into his hair. "It's okay," she said. "It was leap, hooking up with these people. I know that."

"In your place I would have done much crazier things if I had to," he admitted.

Her smile slipped. "And so you did," she reminded him, his Hail Mary plan to rescue her still fresh in both their minds.

Jack had suspected for a long time now that if anything, this thing between them had kept them alive when everything said they shouldn't. And he didn't just mean here in the galaxy, the risks they willingly took for each other, but knew they'd been pushing this boundary since long before.

Sam's head lowered to his shoulder. "I must admit though," she said, "I am getting really tired of this bad timing curse we seem to have going."

That was an understatement. Starting a relationship while undercover in enemy territory probably wasn't one for the dating advice books. "You mean like our first real date getting preempted by an intergalactic rescue mission?"

She laughed, her fingers trailing along the edge of his collar. "Something like that."

He thought she sounded a bit wistful, all things told. "Does that mean you want to go on a date?"

She leaned back, raising an eyebrow at him. "I think we're a little past that, don't you think?"

He shrugged. "It's not like we've ever done anything in the right order to begin with."

She stared back at him for a moment before a slow smile overtook her face. "True," she said, tilting her head to one side. "So how exactly do you go about dating someone you've been sleeping with for a year?"

"I dunno. I imagine we can work it out."

"Eventually," she amended, her tone a bit wry.

Jack smirked at her, backing her slowly up against the console behind her. "Luckily for you, I'm a very patient man."

"You? Patient?" she teased. Her tone was deceptively light, but he sensed something uncertain hiding just underneath. He wondered if that was what she was really scared of—that he'd lose patience before they finally managed to figure this all out.

Lowering his head to hers, he nodded. "When it comes to things that matter."

"Jack," she said, looking up at him in a way that made him feel like he was the only thing in her world. The intensity, the honesty of that look, made him ache because for all they'd technically been together for months, for all the nights spent together, the comfort they took in each other, it was this connection that had been absent for far too long. But here it was, warm and solid and _here_.

Closing the last distance between them, he leaned in and kissed her. Winding his fingers in her hair, he deepened the kiss and was rewarded with a soft sound of approval from Sam's throat. She tugged the hem of his shirt free, leaning back just far enough to pull his shirt up and over his head, tossing it absently into some distant corner of the room.

She paused, her fingers lingering on the puckered, new skin of his wound. Even though she'd seen it many times before, the look on her face, it was almost like she was letting herself really feel the terror for the first time. He thought maybe their ability to compartmentalize was a blessing in some ways—it kept them moving even when everything was screaming panic. Just as long as they didn't let it turn them into robots in between.

Jack hooked a finger under her chin, gently urging her to look up at him. "I'm okay," he reminded her.

She nodded, letting out a deep breath. "Yes, you are," she said, pulling his mouth back down to hers.

He leaned into her, one hand gripping her thigh as she lifted her leg. She shifted against him, her mouth hot against his throat and he bit back a groan.

"I'm missing that skirt again, right about now," he said just to hear her laugh, because he had every intention in the world of taking his time with this. He lifted the edge of her tank top, skimming his hands up over her ribs, and he could feel her laughter echo under his fingers.

"So much for patience," she teased.

He grinned back at her.

"Well," an intruding voice observed. "That certainly answers that question."

"Go away, Daniel," Carter ordered before Jack could manage it himself. There was a time they would have been mortified to be caught out like this, but that was back before far too many months of way too little privacy.

"It's this room, I'm telling you," Vala noted. "That engine is an aphrodisiac."

"And shut the door!" Jack called out.

The door pulled shut, Vala and Daniel's muffled conversation fading into the distance.

Jack smiled down at Carter. "Now, where were we?"

She slid her hands down his chest. "I believe you were demonstrating what a patient man you are."

"Right," he said, feeling her shiver as he trailed his fingers up her thigh. "Exactly how much time do you have?"

Her hands cupped his face, her eyes moving over his features. "There's no rush."

Finally.


	9. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

The sun was shining. It was a clear day, the soft breeze brushing up against _Serenity_ as she sat steady on the planet's surface, her docking bay doors thrown wide open to the spring air as they waited for the return of three of their crew.

River walked the length of the cargo bay, feeling the way her steps were different upon _Serenity_ when she rested planetside, sure and solid, but without any give. Pausing behind Zoe and Inara, she listened as they seemed to speak quietly of grief and improbabilities and deeper mysteries without actually a word between them.

Nearer to the doors, River saw Kaylee, Sam, and Jayne sitting just outside the hold, sprawled in chairs as they soaked up the sun. Kaylee and Sam's fingers twisted in the light as they discussed plans and theories and just-maybe-possibles, Jayne's mouth wide open as he snoozed insensibly next to them.

Rising her hand against the blinding sun, River stared off to the next rise, feeling their approach before the first figure broke the horizon.

"They're coming," she said.

Sam pushed up out of her chair, Kaylee kicking Jayne into wakefulness.

"What?" Jayne demanded, his hands flying out on either side.

"Oh my," Inara said, laughter in her voice as they all caught a glimpse of their returning shipmates.

Mal and Jack were head to toe covered in thick mud, while Vala strolled just in front of them, spotless with a satchel across her chest and a lacy parasol twisting above her head like a duchess.

"Dare I ask how the job went, sir?" Zoe said while Kaylee and Sam fought off laughter.

Mal and Jack looked at each other and simultaneously said, "What job?" as if they had previously agreed never to speak of it ever again.

Vala snapped her parasol shut, spinning it between her fingers like a baton. "You almost had to see it to believe it."

"Vala," Mal said, warning clear in his voice.

Vala glanced at him, nodding. "You're right. This story is just too good to go for free." She turned back to their audience, parasol tip down in front of her. "Do I hear any bids?"

Jayne and Kaylee were already scrambling for things to offer up for payment, Sam goading them on.

Jack threw Sam a look that she seemed to have no problem interpreting. She took a step back, hands raised in front of her. "Jack O'Neill, don't you dare."

But Jack didn't seem to hear as he swept her up in a squelching hug, her feet actually lifting up off the ground for a moment. He rubbed his head against her cheek, leaving a long brown smudge on her pale skin.

"You are in so much trouble!" Sam said, voice rising near a shriek. River didn't need the waves underneath to see the joy in her, nestled just below her bluster.

Jack laughed, darting a quick glance to River. "Totally worth it," he said with a wink, almost like a secret between friends.

River smiled.

***

The strangers lingered until they weren't no more, and _Serenity_ expanded and adjusted and found space for them. They filled a lot of the holes, even if the deeper cracks were still there—would always be there. But there were new sounds now, new waves rolling through the walls of Serenity.

Sam and Mal arguing, though mostly for sport now, as they each got an inordinate amount of amusement out of provoking the other. Vala saying everything but what she really meant, truth dolloped out like a tenuous trail of breadcrumbs, just waiting to see if anyone might ever pick up on it. Daniel did, but held it close to his chest, waiting to see where she landed.

And then there was Jack.

Jack was still a hum just quiet enough not to be heard, even by River. He was different than the others, something fundamental shifted in his base pairs. It had been a long time since River had to learn to know someone from the outside, from what they willingly gave and not what they hid. He scared her, at first, because maybe she couldn't dig out his dark spaces, but she still saw the anger, the danger—Simon caught by the throat. Only then she saw the way his eyes followed his friends, heard the way his voice softened when he caught her following him.

"_Hey, kid. You must be really bored to find me so interesting."_

She decided she liked the not knowing, having to guess what he might say or do, being wrong now and again. She hadn't been allowed to be wrong for so long.

Mal was the one to suggest she teach Jack to fly _Serenity_. "He's one hell of a pilot," Mal had said, waves of reluctant respect and nascent trust emanating off him.

When she was up on deck with Jack as her co-pilot, it was quiet. Nothing to obscure the sound of _Serenity_, the soft hum of things being right and steady and full. She thought Jack might just appreciate the silence too.

She couldn't be sure though.

She liked that.

.fin.


End file.
